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Trump Nominates Rep. Elise Stefanik to be UN Ambassador; Trump Makes Key Staffing Picks as He Plans White House Return; Biden Races to Cement Legacy Before Trump's Inauguration; Kremlin Denies Reports of Trump-Putin Call on Ukraine: "There was No Conversation"; Ukraine: N. Korean Troops Fighting in Russia's Kursk Region. Aired 3-3:30p ET

Aired November 11, 2024 - 15:00   ET

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

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BORIS SANCHEZ, CNN HOST: Wielding power and upending the status quo. Donald Trump's inauguration is 10 weeks away, but the President-elect is already putting his stamp on his administration while demanding that Senate Republicans let him have his way when it comes to cabinet appointments.

Plus, bracing for an offensive, Ukraine can only wait as Russia could soon attack with an assault backed by troops from North Korea.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: And dangerous fires on both coasts. Firefighters in New York and New Jersey battle a deadly blaze fueled by a record drought as strong winds give new life to another wildfire near Los Angeles.

We're following these major developing stories and many more, all coming in right here to CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

SANCHEZ: The new administration taking shape as President-elect Donald Trump is adding names, moving quickly to fill key positions as he prepares for a return to the White House. We're learning that in the coming days, Trump is expected to announce Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller, of course, is top - Trump's top immigration advisor who has led calls for more restrictive border policies. Trump has also picked his border czar, naming his former acting director of immigration and customs enforcement, Tom Homan, for the job. And Trump also nominated longstanding ally and New York congresswoman, Elise Stefanik, as his choice for ambassador to the United Nations.

Let's take you now live to West Palm Beach to get the latest from Mar- a-Lago with CNN's Alayna Treene.

Alayna, Mar-a-Lago obviously now the epicenter of folks vying for positions in the new Trump administration. Talk to us about these roles and who he's filling them with.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: Right. Well, there's so much activity happening, Boris, on that island before me. I know that Donald Trump has really been locked down at Mar-a-Lago over the past several days, ever since he won the election, meeting with his transition team, seeing a ton of different allies out on the patio at Mar-a-Lago, all jockeying to get in front of him to prove themselves to him.

But I think one key thing that is notable from all of the names that you mentioned, all of the recent hires that we're seeing, from Susie Wiles to Stephen Miller, Elise Stefanik and Tom Homan, all of them have been very loyal to Donald Trump, especially over the last several years, not just in the campaign, but also in that time period immediately after Donald Trump left the White House in 2021, when a lot of people were distancing themselves from him.

People like Susie Wiles and Stephen Miller, they are the ones who had stood by his side, and clearly that loyalty is being rewarded. Now, for - as for deputy chief of staff, with this new reporting that we broke this morning, this is going to be, I'm told, a much - more expanded role than what you might have typically seen a deputy chief of staff for policy be. Stephen Miller is going to have a very influential role in a second Trump term, particularly when it comes to immigration.

I'm told that a lot of the immigration policy that is going to be conducted in Donald Trump's second term is going to be coming out of the White House, and Stephen Miller is going to have a very heavy hand in all of that. And I'd remind you as well that we've seen - we saw him do it in the first administration, you'll see it the second time around, he's going to have a very hardline view on what Donald Trump should do, including the idea of mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, something that Miller is the lead architect of.

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Now, as for Tom Homan, I'm told he's going to likely be working very closely with Miller on those goals.

And then, of course, Elise Stefanik, she has been by Donald Trump's side throughout this entire process. She was one of the first to endorse him after he had announced his third White House bid. So again, another loyalty pick there.

SANCHEZ: And Alayna, what about Elon Musk's influence over all of this, because the billionaire tech tycoon has essentially taken up residency at Mar-a-Lago since the election. What's his influence on Donald Trump?

TREENE: I think a clear thing to have paid attention to was who was on stage with Donald Trump the night that he gave his victory speech here in Palm Beach. Elon Musk was on stage with him, and you've seen him really every day at Mar-a-Lago since. He's brought his kids there. They've been going around golfing with Donald Trump and his family. Donald Trump gave them a tour the day after the election. And so, he's having a very big role. He's going to have an outsized role.

Now, one key thing I think to note about Elon Musk is as - even though he is very influential, he is not expected to take on a major role in a second Trump turn. However, people close to the former president say that doesn't matter. He can still wield a ton of influence on the outside. And I imagine you're going to continue to see him involved in a lot of these conversations that we report out in the coming weeks, Boris.

SANCHEZ: Alayna Treene, live for us just outside Mar-a-Lago in West Palm Beach, Florida. Thank you so much. Brianna.

KEILAR: An important step in the Trump transition is going to happen on Wednesday when the President-elect meets with President Biden in the Oval Office.

Right now, Biden is racing to protect his legislative achievements as the White House prepares for a second Trump term.

CNN's Kayla Tausche is live for us.

Kayla, what more can you tell us about the President's plans?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, he has a lot of plans, Brianna, that he's been laying the groundwork for in recent weeks, but of course, those have taken on new urgency since the elections. First, to deploy as much money as possible that's available to the government under the President's signature infrastructure, manufacturing and clean energy initiatives. That process has been underway.

He also wants to fill the dozens of open judgeships for which he has already put forward nominees. Of course, that will depend on Congress. And then there is also the need to fund the government around this time next month when a short-term government funding plan is set to expire. And we could see the President and the administration try to add on to that bill some of their key legislative priorities to try to upsize funding for some things going forward. So we'll wait to see about that.

But the process is going to be clouded by the fact that Democrats are widely frustrated with the outcome of the election and the amount of ground that they've ceded over the last four years. And then there's just the crowded calendar.

And when I talked to a senior administration official about how much they can actually do, the person acknowledged that the best way to Trump-proof your legacy is to get your own people elected. And obviously, that didn't happen.

And then the President's also going to be stepping out on the world stage. On Thursday, he's going to be leaving for a swing through South America to greet leaders from the Indo-Pacific and the G20, where he's going to try to reaffirm the U.S.'s commitments to its allies and try to fortify some of its national security positions toward its adversaries. But of course, that is all going to come after that critical meeting that Biden will be holding with President-elect Trump here at the White House on Wednesday. Brianna.

KEILAR: Kayla Tausche, live for us from the White House. Thank you. SANCHEZ: So now that Democrats have had a few days to reflect on their election day losses, we're joined by pollster and communication strategist, Frank Luntz, with his analysis.

And Frank, I know that soon after the - or actually in the final week of the campaign, you talked to voters about their greatest hesitation against voting for Vice President Harris. What did you find?

FRANK LUNTZ, POLLSTER AND COMMUNICATIONS STRATEGIST: Two things: Number one is they weren't sure about what exactly she would do in the first hour, the first day, the first month. She never articulated exactly what she would do and how she would do it. And you can't expect to get elected president just by slamming Donald Trump. You have to put something out yourself. And second is that they - she never really convinced voters that she wasn't the Harris of 2019 and 2020 because her politics were different in 2024. But if you're not telling people what they need to know, they're not going to vote for you.

KEILAR: There was also - and we spoke with Jasmine Wright from NOTUS who wrote a really interesting piece pulling back the curtain on what happened with the Harris campaign. And one of the things that she reported was that the campaign may have misread certain issues that were animating the public. Like there was a top Harris campaign aide who said the issue of how Harris had responded in the past and it was the target of a Trump ad to a transgender issue was something that was really finding an audience and yet they thought it wasn't. What did you find?

LUNTZ: Because they weren't listening to the American people. Someone needs to go back to the polling to understand what they were thinking. Can you name anything that we learned about Donald Trump in the last 100 days? Anything that was different?

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We know what he is, good and bad. We know who he is, good and bad. And there's nothing there. But we did not know the same thing about Harris. I did not understand. And in fact, you can pinpoint her rise. It peaked at exactly when she turned on Trump. Up to the point when she was talking about herself, the joy of her events, the convention where everyone's dancing and happy, and she's talking about the future, awesome.

And then she goes dark against Trump, and that's the end of the climb. And in fact, she goes back further and further and further.

And one other point, men. I know the gender gap, everyone focuses on the female vote. But the truth is, she did so badly among middle-aged, middle-income, moderate men. They found the Democratic Party having moved so far to the left. And these were among people who voted for Biden and voted for Clinton. And they felt this is not the same Democratic Party.

I hear the recriminations. I'm getting calls from Democrats all the time over the last 72 hours. And they want to know, how do we avoid this in the future, what did we miss? And the answer is they missed common sense. They missed efficient, effective and accountable. They missed the center of the American public, the center of the issues. They became ideological and they should have been personal.

SANCHEZ: I wonder what you make of the argument from some Democrats, and specifically talking about Latino men, men in general perhaps as well, that misinformation and disinformation played a huge role in swaying those voting blocs. Did it really play an outsized role?

LUNTZ: I don't accept that. And I recognize that there was some of that online. And it's a challenge we're going to face. And it's going to get worse as we move further and further into the AI age. But in the end, the Latino voters, despite what had happened in Madison Square Garden, despite that horrific joke about Puerto Rico, Trump still did better than any Republican ever among the Latino vote. To me, that's the most significant story of the campaign.

The left tried to demonize him and tried to focus on his language. And in the end, they said, you know what? There's more for Trump. There's more for us in Trump than there is in Harris. And critically, it was about prices. And it was about immigration. And what people don't understand is the Latino population who's here and voting, they don't like illegal immigration. They think it makes them look bad. They want to be judged on their own merits and they came here the right way, and they don't like the people who are trying to come here the wrong way.

KEILAR: So looking back, was it right for Biden to get out of the race? And if yes, was it right for Harris to take the helm?

LUNTZ: They never gave her a chance to prove herself. I mean, I don't like this wording about coups and all that. That's not what this was. It was voluntary. But in the end, she would have been better off if he had left a month earlier. They had a primary. The voters got a chance to give their point of view. I do believe there are Democrats who could have beaten Trump: Cory Booker, the senator from New Jersey; Wes Moore, the governor from Maryland; Mitch Landrieu, the mayor of New Orleans, these are very astute politicians who are very good leaders and had answers to these questions. And they never - would have allowed themselves to be marginalized the way that she was.

The Democrats have every right to be mad. They spent more than a billion dollars that was wasted and she should have won. I know we have to get out, but Trump was indicted, what, 91 times? He was impeached twice. He's the oldest president ever to be elected - to be elected and he had January 6th, and he still won.

If you can't beat that individual, your party has a problem, you have a problem, and you need to reexamine it. So this battle should be happening.

KEILAR: Frank Luntz, thank you so much for being with us.

LUNTZ: Thank you.

KEILAR: And still to come, the Kremlin is denying reports of a phone call between Vladimir Putin and President-elect Trump. Ahead, why Moscow says this is pure fiction.

SANCHEZ: Plus, Trump hoping to bypass Congress, insisting that Republican senators, seeking the top leadership post, commit to a fast-track process for his cabinet picks. That and much more, still to come on CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

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KEILAR: The Kremlin is now flatly denying reports that Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke with President-elect Trump last week. A Kremlin spokesman saying today there was no conversation. CNN's Fred Pleitgen is live in Moscow monitoring the latest here.

Fred, what are you learning from officials there?

FRED PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, flatly denying is absolutely right, Brianna. In fact, they're vehemently denying that any sort of conversation took place. This was on a conference call that happened between the Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov and reporters early this morning. He was asked whether or not such a conversation had taken place. What was it about this Washington Post reporting.

And I want to read some of the words that he used because it shows just how vehement this denial is.

He says, "This is completely untrue. It is pure fiction. It is simply false information." So obviously the Kremlin trying to shoot that down. It was interesting because the reporting had alleged this conversation apparently took place last Thursday. And I know that last Thursday Vladimir Putin was at a really long conference and his last event at that conference ended at about half past midnight local time. So it would've been difficult to see him then afterwards having an important phone call with the President-elect of the United States. And again, the Russians now saying that it is not true.

At the same time, of course, we know that Vladimir Putin has said that he's very open to speaking with Donald Trump and also speaking with Donald Trump before he actually takes office, Brianna.

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KEILAR: And what can you tell us from where you are? Because a U.S. official says that Russian and North Korean forces are preparing an offensive operation against occupying Ukrainian troops in Russia's Kursk region.

PLEITGEN: Yes, absolutely. This is - you're right, this comes from a U.S. source, but there are also Ukrainian sources who are commenting on this as well, saying that the Ukrainians are up against the force of about 50,000, both Russian and North Korean troops. And, of course, the North Korean troops in all of this, of course, something that is of huge interest and of huge concern, not just to the U.S., but to European allies in NATO as well. And essentially, we're speaking of about 11,000 North Korean troops that are literally on the ground there. And the Ukrainians say it is so important because those 11,000 Ukrainian troops, while they may not be on the actual front line, they free up more of those Russian forces that could then go and attack the Ukrainians. And again, trying to push them out of that territory in the Southwest of Russia.

For the Ukrainians, trying to hold onto that territory is obviously extremely important because they want to use that territory as a bargaining chip if and when any sort of negotiations with Russia happens so that they could possibly exchange that for territory that the Russians are currently holding in Ukraine. But the Russians are saying they want to take that territory back.

They've also said in the past that there are actually no rush to do that. For the Russians, they continue to say that their own offensive in the Northeast of Ukraine to them is really the key thing, right? The area around Pokrovsk where they have been making gains. Nevertheless, the Russians have also said that they do intend to take back that territory, Brianna.

KEILAR: All right. Fred Pleitgen, thank you for the latest. Boris?

SANCHEZ: Let's discuss the implications with CNN Military Analyst, retired Air Force Colonel Cedric Leighton.

Colonel, it's Veterans Day, so on behalf of myself and the entire CNN team, I just want to say thanks so much for your service.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Thanks so much, Boris. I appreciate that very much.

SANCHEZ: Appreciate you.

So let's talk about Kursk and the North Korea factor when it comes to their troops being involved there. What does Russia need to do to regain that territory? So basically what they need is a fresh infusion of troops. And what are the North Koreans? A fresh infusion of troops.

So there are about - as Fred was mentioning in his report - there are about 10,000 to 11,000 North Koreans that we believe are in Kursk right now. What could happen is that over the next months, they could potentially get as many as a hundred thousand North Koreans into Russia. There's some reporting to that effect. Whether or not that happens that way, that remains to be seen.

But that would mean potentially somewhere around 15,000 per month rotating into the Kursk area or other areas like the Donbas region is also possible. And what that means - that fresh infusion, what that means, Boris, is that they have new people who are coming in who are not worn down by the war. That's kind of like what happened in World War I when the American forces entered World War I. They were the fresh troops. They changed the dynamics of the battlefield.

And even though the number appears to be small, when you're talking about only a few hundred thousand troops on either side, 10,000, 15,000 can make a huge difference.

SANCHEZ: Yes, I'm wondering what you make of the effectiveness of the North Korean force because there have been these stories about North Korean troops that have deserted North Korea and they've been found to have parasites in their intestines and all sorts of ailments and issues. Are the North Koreans a sophisticated armed services, you would say?

LEIGHTON: Well, it depends on which unit you're looking at. So these troops are supposedly from their 11th Corps. The 11th Corps contains special operations elements in it. Special operations elements get the best food. They get the best training, they are the elite. And that's true in almost any military force.

And because of that, these are probably pretty well-trained fighters. They are used to, of course, the North Korean environment poised to - against South Korea. And so they've gotten some training to deal with the Russian environment and the Ukrainian environment. Whether or not they're effective remains to be seen as well.

But they'd certainly be a force to reckon with and they have specialized training, especially in close combat that I would pay very close attention to.

SANCHEZ: So zooming out to where the conflict stands now, we've seen both Russia and Ukraine break records with the number of drone attacks that they're launching at each other. Why do you think that's happening now?

LEIGHTON: Well, I think both sides are trying to, in essence, gain as much as they possibly can. There's - they seem to believe that there is some kind of an end coming to this conflict. What that end is, we don't know. But each side is trying to gain some degree of advantage.

Now, the Russians have the advantage in terms of numbers of drones, you know, the 145 or so drones that attacked the various Ukrainian cities like Odessa, Kharkiv, Kyiv, those - that's a large number. The Ukrainians had a far less of a number, but they were very effective in targeting areas around Moscow, shutting down two of the major airports there.

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That's a big deal as well. So both sides can disrupt the other. And it seems as if, in this particular moment, it's actually the Ukrainians that had the more disruptive aspect to their operation as opposed to the Russians.

SANCHEZ: Colonel Cedric Leighton, appreciate the analysis as always. Thanks for joining us.

LEIGHTON: You bet, Boris. Thank you.

SANCHEZ: Yes.

So as Republican senators prepare to choose their majority leader, President-elect Donald Trump is already telling them what to do when it comes to his cabinet nominees. We'll discuss next.

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