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President-Elect Donald Trump Names Tom Homan as Border Czar and Representative Elise Stefanik and U.S. Ambassador to United Nations; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) Interviewed on Possible Overreach by Republicans When They Take Majorities in U.S. House of Representatives and Senate; Justice Sonia Sotomayor to Remain as Some Call for Her to Retire; What Donald Trump's Win Means for Artificial Intelligence. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired November 11, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:00]

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Essentially, it's when you're feeling very doomy and gloomy about something. It could be politics, the election, the economy, or something going on in your life. You essentially go shopping to make yourself feel better. It's that dopamine hit that you get when you're shopping to make you feel better about something that's going on.

So for the election, for example, we saw some people reported that they were doing a little bit of shopping in anticipation of maybe the results not working out in their favor. And we saw that people were spending right after the election, maybe if the Donald Trump who is in office, who's going to be in office, wasn't their candidate of choice.

But essentially, where it can get hairy is because 50 percent of Americans have reported that they are carrying debt on their credit cards. And that's where it can get tricky. It's not just the one-off. It's the constant spending when you're not feeling good. And we know that Americans are carrying over $1 trillion in credit card debt. That is a record.

And so it's important to note that if you are doing this every so often and you can afford it financially, OK. But if you're tying it to how you're feeling about something, the economy, politics, it's probably something that you want to try to look at.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: I now have a new excuse to give to my husband of why I'm spending so much. We're just going to go with that. Vanessa, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: We have brand-new reporting on key appointments for the incoming Trump administration. Ambassador to the United Nations, will secretary of state be next?

We're about to learn if the New York criminal conviction against Donald Trump will hold. What happens next there very much in the balance. And North Korean troops now at war against Ukraine. We've got a new

look inside a planned offensive.

I'm John Berman with Sara Sidner and Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: Happening now, the team President-elect Donald Trump is planning to take to Washington taking shape this morning. Overnight, Trump named Tom Homan to be his, quote, "border czar." And new this morning, Trump has nominated fourth-ranking Republican in the House, Congresswoman Elise Stefanick, to be his U.N. ambassador.

All this as Trump is moving to bend Washington to his will, as Punchbowl News" put it this morning. CNN senior political analyst Mark Preston is with us this morning. We are happy to see you, Mark. You have a brand- new reporting on the Stefanick pick and the sort of strategy inside Mar-a-Lago right now, which seems like a wild world that's happening there. What are you hearing?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: It certainly is, Sara. Last night, Kaitlan Collins reported that Donald Trump planned on picking Elise Stefanick, a loyal ally of his for so many years, to be his spokesperson for the United States at the U.N. this morning. They have put a statement out. They have said that, in fact, that is going to happen.

This is now the third person we have seen named by Donald Trump since he's been elected into key positions. We saw Tom Homan late last night. He has been named as the border czar. What does that mean? Well, he's going to be in charge of rounding up all of the immigrants that are here in the country illegally that Donald Trump wants to send back. Elise Stefanick, on the other hand, she will be somebody who will be carrying Donald Trump's foreign policy message, certainly within the United Nations.

And then, of course, we know that Susie Wiles, who was chosen, who led his campaign, she is the first woman chief of staff, somebody who is considered extremely serious, who can keep the trains running on time.

And what I've been told just this morning is, as far as timing of picks, sure, there may be some big names that pop out in the next few days that we're all looking for, but we should really be focusing in on the worker bees, the ones, those bureaucrats who will now be bureaucrats who are being be brought in as political appointees to implement the Trump agenda, folks that he trusts such as Tom Toman, Elise Stefanick, Susie Wiles. It starts to give you a flavor of what Donald Trump's government is going to look like, Sara.

SIDNER: It certainly does. This also sort of gives you a flavor of how he plans to do his business, because he's making new demands for whoever is going to lead this Senate that is now GOP-controlled. And we've seen the responses from those who want the job. What can you tell us about this?

PRESTON: Well, certainly. The race now for control of Washington moves to the United States Senate. And the reason why is you have three gentlemen right now running to replace Mitch McConnell as the Republican leader. That person will become the majority leader next year, will wield an incredible amount of power, will be the person who is charged with pushing through Donald Trump's agenda in the United States Senate. Right now, we have Donald Trump saying that he basically wants the new majority leader to work with him at every level.

[08:05:02]

In fact, he is calling for recess appointments for his, for his folks. And the reason why he's doing that is because he's concerned that he may not get some of these folks through. There may be some Republicans that would push back against perhaps some of his more controversial nominees. And a very smart person just told me about a half-hour ago, someone who has covered Capitol Hill mow now for about 30 years, it's not just about the few people that he may get through right now, Sara. It's about perhaps him trying to put a slate of 100, 500, 1,000 people through. And what's most important about recess appointments is that you are not vetted thoroughly by the U.S. Senate.

SIDNER: That's right. Mark Preston, thank you so much for bringing us all those details this morning. Lots happening in Trump world. Kate?

BOLDUAN: Joining us right now is Democratic Congresswoman from Florida Debbie Wasserman Schultz to talk more about all of this. Congresswoman, thanks for being here. So while Donald Trump is working on his plans, many Democrats are still trying to figure out what went wrong and what the message is to Democrats from voters this time. Donald Trump won all swing states, the Electoral College, and is winning the popular vote as we see it right now. What do you think the message is from this election?

REP. DEBBIE WASSERMAN SCHULTZ (D-FL): OK, Kate, thanks for having me. And what I want to first acknowledge is that the Democrats absolutely have work to do. We have work to do on making sure that we can communicate our message effectively. By message, I mean the substance of what we've accomplished. I mean, we passed the Inflation Reduction Act, massive -- which brought massive reductions in prescription drug prices, the most historic investment in global warming and climate change. We passed the Chips Act. We passed the infrastructure bill. And those all created jobs and contributed toward our having the most robust economy worldwide post-COVID.

But obviously, that message didn't get through, and we didn't really -- we're not able to acknowledge consistently the pain that voters feel. And I can hear it from people in my district and I feel it in my own grocery store when I go and buy my groceries every week or every few days. We were not acknowledging that there are people who are still struggling to make their daily ends meet.

But the problem that we've got is that the communications landscape is so diffuse. There are podcasts and YouTube WhatsApp messaging. And we have to make sure that we're meeting voters where they are, and we didn't really do a consistent job. But this result cannot be overstated. Yes, Trump looks like he is

headed to have won all of the battleground states. But at the same time we won the Senate race in Nevada, in Michigan, in Wisconsin, and likely Arizona. And we are likely, either way, in the House to have the same slim majority, no matter which party ends up. So this was not the way the election, that the majority of the media is portraying. Voters had a Trump on the ballot the last three elections. We had a very short presidential campaign with our nominee, and there were a lot of other issues as well.

BOLDUAN: You may not call it a wave, but it was decisive and broad. That was for sure. One thing that with this election, with the results and with the coming months, one thing that does not seem so clear right now come January is, who is the leader of the Democratic Party? Who is the leader to carry the message and to carry the platform? Who do you consider the leader of the Democratic Party as Joe Biden is heading to the exit?

SCHULTZ: Well, I think the most consistent person we'll be able to hear from and follow is Hakeem Jefferies, who will either be the first African American speaker elected in American history, or a minority lead like has been, and has able to essentially govern from the minority throughout the last two years in this Congress. Republicans could not get out of their way. There's nothing indicating that they will be able to do so. And we essentially made sure that every major piece of legislation, whether it was passing the budget through a continuing resolution or the omnibus budget, not shutting the government down, not crashing the economy into the side of a cliff by raising the debt ceiling. All of those major victories happened because Democrats brought a majority of the votes. And Republicans couldn't possibly have achieved that without us.

And so Hakeem Jefferies has been able to put together a masterful campaign that ensured that we essentially are either going to win this election, and the votes need to continue to be counted, or we are essentially going to be in the same minority position that we were. And we had Senate races all across the country that Democrats won in spite of the fact that Trump won their states.

And you've got to look at, also, this is a guy that's been on the ballot three times. He's really been on the national landscape since 2015.

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And the next election is not going to have a Donald Trump, at least as long as we follow the Constitution. And so, we have to get ready over the next several years to make sure that we can reset and ensure that the kind of playing field that we're playing on allows us to communicate effectively with our voters and that we meet voters where they are.

BOLDUAN: In Florida, really quickly, Florida was one of several states that had abortion rights on the ballot. And a majority of Florida voters supported protecting abortion rights up to the 24th week of pregnancy. But when it comes to how Florida works, it still fell short of what was needed to get it actually approved. What, then, do you think the message is that that vote in Florida and what Florida voters are saying?

SCHULTZ: If Republicans are smart, which I doubt they will be because they're extremists, especially on abortion rights, and I'm really concerned under Donald Trump that you're going to see a national abortion ban, and so we have to fight tooth and nail to prevent that. But we got 58 percent of the vote to restore abortion rights in Florida. And what they should do is the legislature should go back into session and they should restore our abortion rights legislatively, like the overwhelming majority of voters, Republicans, Democrats, and NPAs or independents here in Florida, came together and said, they went too far. We have a six-week, essentially a total abortion ban here. And voters need to be respected.

The legislature won't do that. Ron DeSantis won't do that, because they're extremists. And they want to control women's bodies. And that's going to reverberate over next few years. We have a midterm election coming up.

But stay tuned to 2026, Kate, because inevitably, most often, the first congressional races after a president's victory ends up seeing gains for the party in the minority. So overreach, which is clear that Donald Trump is headed towards, and likely in Florida, too, is going to face some likely backlash if they're not careful. And they won't be careful.

BOLDUAN: Well, we will see. Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, thank you for coming in. Sara?

SIDNER: This morning, some are calling on Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor to step down before Democrats lose power. How she's responding to that.

Plus, firefighters battling blazes on both coasts. What officials are telling residents of New York and New Jersey to do as more fires than we've seen in recent history rage at the same time.

And Texas firefighters save a two-year-old trapped inside a burning home. You've got to check out this amazing rescue. That's ahead.

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[08:17:11]

BERMAN: All right, this morning, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor is making it clear, she has no plans to resign. This is despite calls from some on the left for her to step down before President- elect Donald Trump takes office, which would give President Biden a chance, in theory, a chance, to put a younger justice on the bench.

CNN's senior legal analyst former federal and state prosecutor, Elie Honig is with us now. So, the Sotomayor thing, that appears to be done and dusted, at this point.

But that's not to say that Donald Trump in four years can't make a very long-lasting impact on the Supreme Court.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: Justice Sotomayor is not going anywhere. If you look at her recent opinions or oral listen to the oral arguments, she's sharp as a tack. There's no reason for her to leave. But what people do need to watch for the two oldest justices on the card right now, Clarence Thomas is 76; Samuel Alito is 74. One or both of them could well choose to retire.

This is the way it works recently, right, Stephen Breyer -- Justice Breyer retired so he could be replaced by a much younger Ketanji Brown Jackson. Before that, Anthony Kennedy retired replaced by a much younger Brett Kavanaugh.

So, one or both of Thomas or Alito could retire and be released by a 48 or 52-year- old.

BERMAN: Thirty-six.

HONIG: Right.

BERMAN: Seriously they are getting younger and younger.

HONIG: And then that seat will be owned for 20, 30, 40 years. I have to say, Clarence Thomas, if he finishes out the next term, will become the number one all- time longest serving justice. So he may want to push it to the very end so he can get the record.

BERMAN: So, Supreme Court over there. Attorney general is a place where Donald Trump will make a huge impact with this election and in who he picks to nominate will tell us a lot, Elie.

HONIG: It sure will. So first of all, let's remember, Donald Trump felt betrayed by both of his attorney generals. He never forgave Jeff Sessions for recusing himself from the Russia investigation. He never forgave Bill Barr for standing up at the end against his claims of election fraud.

So, I think Donald Trump is going to be looking for a loyalist. And the thing I'm looking for is, do we have somebody, 'A' who's been a prosecutor, who understands the values of DOJ. And 'B' who's willing to put the interests of DOJ and the American people, which sometimes conflict, with the president's interest. Or is he going to put his loyalty to the president first.

So, that's going to be really telling to me, as to, obviously, the AG itself is a crucial position, but also, how does Donald Trump view his mandate? How aggressively does he view this, and to what extent does he feel empowered to put in anyone who is going to do his bidding?

BERMAN: Was Merrick Garland just a loyalist to Joe Biden? No, I don't think so. Not at all. Merrick Garland -- let's put it this way -- Merrick Garland appointed a special counsel to investigate Joe Biden and to investigate Joe Biden's son. So, no, I don't think he was a loyalist to Joe Biden.

BERMAN: All right, the cases against Donald Trump, there is a big moment in the conviction, the criminal conviction, in New York against Donald Trump. This week, tomorrow.

HONIG: Yes, tomorrow, Judge Merchan, and now we are in the hush money case in Manhattan is going to issue his ruling on the immunity case.

Now, you may be thinking how could there be immunity. This all, related to payments made before Donald Trump was president, the first time in 2016. The problem though from the prosecutor's point of view is some of the evidence they introduced at trial did relate to conversations Trump had while in the White House. Hope Hicks was a key witness about conversations she had when she was a communications director.

[08:20:17]

The immunity decision came out after that trial, but it's still the law of the land and Trump's team is now saying, that evidence should not have been included, therefore I'm entitled to a new trial. So, we don't know what Judge Merchan is going to do.

He could say, yes, that evidence should not have been let in a verdict is vacated, I mean it is rare to sort of keep perspective, it is rare to see a verdict thrown out but it happens, or he could rule that that evidence was too small a part of the total puzzle and doesn't necessitate a brand-new verdict, but that's going to be a huge moment tomorrow.

BERMAN: Yes, and how he chooses to say it all, given the presidential also we've had. Elie, good to see you.

HONIG: Thanks, John.

BERMAN: Sara.

SIDNER: All right, ahead, Trump sweeping campaign process may be hard to keep specifically when it comes to artificial intelligence. How his plans could upend the industry.

And, fire fighters are battling wild fires on both coasts this morning. The latest on the deadly fire raging along the New York-New Jersey border. That's ahead.

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[08:25:32]

SIDNER: During his presidential campaign, Donald Trump made several promises that could affect the climate, health, and artificial intelligence. The world of AI has drastically changed since the last time Trump was in the White House.

What does this win mean for the rapidly expanding landscape? Joining me now is Suresh Venkatasubramanian, director of the Center for Technological Responsibility Reimagination, and Redesign at Brown University.

Thank you so much for coming on the show to talk about this really important and interesting issue.

President Biden tweeted a while back, and I saw that you liked it, that artificial intelligence has enormous potential to tackle some of our toughest challenges, but we must address its risks. And he was pushing for an AI Bill of Rights. What does that Bill of Rights entail? And is it something that you think is really important that we have in place?

SURESH VENKATASUBRAMANIAN, DIRECTOR, BROWN UNIVERSITY, CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGICAL RESPONSIBILITY REIMAGINATION, AND REDESIGN: Yes, thank you for having me.

I absolutely think that we need protections for people in the age of AI, and the AI bill of rights. A blueprint for AI Bill of Rights articulated what these protections should look like.

That AI systems that we put out there in the world that affect people's lives should be safe. They should be effective at what they do. They shouldn't discriminate against people. They should be transparent in how they work, and we should be able to ask how these systems work, especially when they affect us. And there should be a dial zero for operator, a way for us to get access to people to address our concerns and not have to deal with a whole train of automated systems that we know can be very frustrating.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you, Donald Trump has run on deregulation, which means less rules for businesses. What do you think he will do when it comes to artificial intelligence and are you concerned about it?

VENKATASUBRAMANIAN: I mean, I have concerns and I have hopes. And I have things that I think are very important. I'm of course, concerned about the prospect of losing provisions for protecting people's civil rights, especially when subject to bias and error-prone automated decision systems like AI, so I'm very worried about that.

I am hopeful though that much of the guidance to agencies that this administration has put out will continue in some form in the next administration. The first Trump administration, not many know this, had put out their own guidance on AI. And there are many elements in that guidance that are very much in line with what the current guidance looks like.

The fact that systems should be accurate and effective, they should be safe and secure, and that they should be trustworthy. That's actually in the title of the Executive Order that the first Trump administration put out.

But I want to emphasize what is most important of all. That we not have a policy vacuum. I think there are some that will call for a complete suspension of any rules regarding AI. I think that would be a huge mistake. I think we've seen for the past many years what happens when we put AI out in the world without any guardrails and we don't want business as usual.

We also don't want the United States to fall behind what other countries, the European Union, and the UN, globally is doing to put checks and balances around AI.

SIDNER: Our reporters are saying, look, that Elon Musk is really holding court at Mar-a- Lago and has some serious influence with the president-elect at this time. But he has also talked about AI. He's talked about regulating AI and has warned that it could pose a threat to humanity. What do you think his role might be in all of this?

VENKATASUBRAMANIAN: I don't know. It's hard to say. There are a lot of voices that are speaking to the president-elect at this point. So it's hard to say who will have what influence. I do know that many in the tech industry have spoken about some of the concerns around AI. I think it's important to focus on the concerns we see here and now in the real world.

We should try to avoid speculative concerns about a future that has not yet come to pass and it is unlikely to come to pass. But I do think there are concerns right now that we need to worry about. Concerns that people are facing every day.

SIDNER: Are you concerned about Capitol Hill understanding exactly what it is regulating, or has failed to regulate, for a long time, failing to regulate, for example, social media, and now AI comes along, which is going at lightning speed.

VENKATASUBRAMANIAN: I actually think Capitol Hill has not been able to pass many bills. But there are many, many bills in Congress that are both bipartisan and reflect a much deeper understanding of the different aspects of governance of AI.

There are bills about AI used in government, there are bills about the procurement of AI systems, there are bills about data production and privacy. There's a lot of understanding, I think, in Congress on this issue.

Unfortunately, very little of that has come to pass in terms of actual legislation, but there is work going on, and its bipartisan for the most part.

SIDNER: Suresh Venkatasubramanian, thank you so much for talking about this really important issue that is going to be part of our lives whether we like it or not, appreciate you -- Kate.

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