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Jared Kushner to Play Role in Second Trump Administration?; Trump Cabinet Picks Under Scrutiny. Aired 1-1:30p ET

Aired November 15, 2024 - 13:00   ET

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

[13:00:48]

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN HOST: Could a Trump loyalist soon run the FBI? New CNN reporting on the push by right-wing allies for Trump to pick Kash Patel as FBI director, a MAGA firebrand who has threatened to go after Trump's enemies.

OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN HOST: Plus, it was the case that ignited a political firestorm. And now an undocumented migrant is in court charged with the murder of a Georgia college student, prosecutors revealing new details, disturbing ones in the case, including how the victim, Laken Riley, fought for her life for 17 minutes before her death.

And a new study says obesity is at a crisis point throughout the United States, but could weight loss and diabetes drugs like Ozempic and Wegovy change all that? Well, Dr. Sanjay Gupta is going to join us to answer your questions about the drugs which some have considered game changers.

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

KEILAR: One of the most controversial Trump loyalists now emerging is a possible pick for a key position in the president-elect's incoming administration.

Sources telling CNN that Trump is weighing a major change at the FBI as his allies lobby him to replace current FBI Director Chris Wray with MAGA firebrand Kash Patel.

And troubling new details today about Trump's defense secretary pick. Officials in California confirming that former FOX host Pete Hegseth was involved in a police investigation of a sexual assault allegation back in 2017.

And Trump's pick for attorney general also facing growing skepticism and doubts that he can get confirmed. Lawmakers in both parties demanding to see the findings of a House ethics investigation of Matt Gaetz for allegations of sexual misconduct and illegal drug use. But the house speaker hopes the report is never released.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): No, I mean, I think it's a terrible breach of protocol. The rules of the House have always been that a former member is beyond the jurisdiction of the Ethics Committee. And so I don't think that's relevant.

I'm going to strongly request the Ethics Committee not release the report. That is not the way we do things in the House. And I think that would be a terrible precedent.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: CNN's Kristen Holmes is with us now in this story.

All right, Kristen, let's start at the very beginning here. Remind our viewers who Kash Patel is.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes.

And Kash Patel is a longtime Trump loyalist, and he has really come under fire by everyone outside of Trump's orbit for a number of things that he said in the past several years.

Now, just the tip of the iceberg here is what we have on this slide, which just shows you that he said he would target journalists in the second term. He also said he would find -- quote -- "conspirators" who had -- quote -- "rigged" the 2020 election.

But, overall, when you're talking about Kash Patel, he is somebody who has said that he would and could find avenues to essentially dismantle what they call the deep state, the deep state referring to anyone who is in government who doesn't want to act the way that the president is directing them to act.

We know that that applies, in large part, to the FBI. It also applies to the Department of Justice, two organizations or two agencies that Donald Trump has said that he would completely gut and redo if he were elected. If he does choose Kash Patel, there is a reason for that.

It goes back to what we have been saying since Donald Trump won the election, in particular, won the popular vote, which means Donald Trump has said that he wants to dismantle these various agencies. He wants to redo the FBI, and he believes Kash Patel is somebody who would do that.

And Kash himself has essentially said that he could find, as I noted, avenues in order to do this. Now, when we look at the picture as a whole, whether or not he chooses Kash Patel, this would just follow a long line of what we have seen are controversial Cabinet picks who possibly wouldn't be able to get confirmed.

And that includes what we saw last night in RFK being named as HHS secretary. It also follows Matt Gaetz, Tulsi Gabbard, among others. Now, what I'm being told inside Trump's orbit is that Trump doesn't really care to have all these conversations now about whether or not someone can get confirmed. There is an understanding among people who are close to Donald Trump that there's -- these people maybe might not all get confirmed, that they are incredibly controversial figures.

[13:05:06]

But Donald Trump is using this as an opportunity to put forward the people he believes can be effective messengers of the things he promised on the campaign rally. I cannot stress enough, one of the things that he promised at almost every campaign rally before he won the election was that he would put RFK in charge of health.

And, of course, yesterday we saw him do just that. But, again, there's no disillusionment that everybody is going to have a smooth sailing time getting themselves confirmed. But Donald Trump himself, he hasn't minded the backlash. The people around him haven't minded the backlash.

In fact, one person telling me that they were watching everyone have a meltdown and they knew it was coming.

KEILAR: Kristen Holmes, live for us from West Palm Beach, Florida, thank you -- Omar.

JIMENEZ: All right, well for folks following the appointment process, you have probably heard the term recess appointments a lot over the past few days, but the question, of course, is what does it all mean?

That's why I have got my main man CNN's Phil Mattingly here to help explain that.

So, can you just walk us through the process here? I mean, who are we looking at? What is the reality of the situation?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes, if there's like a Senate procedure Bat Signal. Most normal people wouldn't want to see it. That's my, like, driving force. That's my animating feature.

JIMENEZ: I was going to say, that's you.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: So, look, what are recess appointments? Let's start with the process, to your point, right?

What the former president, president-elect is doing right now is what every president-elect does in this moment, decides who he wants to be in his Cabinet, announces his intent to nominate them. So we have a number of those picks.

It's a little dangerous putting up this screen right now because you never know when another TRUTH Social is going to announce another pick. But obviously we have been talking a lot about them over the course of the last several days.

Some of them, as Chris was just noting, are controversial. All of them will have to go through the Senate process. So what is that process? So the president-elect announces who he wants to nominate, will eventually have to send those nominations up.

Then the Senate committees that oversee the agencies or departments where they're nominated will go through what is a vetting process, then eventually a Senate committee. And then that committee will have to vote to send those nominees to the floor. They could vote them down as well, but that's usually the process, send them to the floor.

Then the full Senate will have an opportunity to vote. Now, it's worth noting most of the time presidents get deference. Republicans have made clear the president will get deference here as well. Not all the time.

JIMENEZ: And, I mean, look, there's a lot we're laying out here. How long does this typically take?

MATTINGLY: Yes, so, again, speed is one of the issues the president- elect has talked about in terms of why he wants to consider recess appointments. But there is a way to do this quickly.

In fact, seven of the 15 picks confirmed of George H.W. Bush happened before assuming office. Now, over the course of the last several administrations, the timelines have ranged from 60 days for President Biden's entire Cabinet to be confirmed to between 90 and 100 days for the former president, president-elect now, Donald Trump and Barack Obama.

So it can be a time-consuming process, but, again, a lot of that has to do with your nominees and how long it takes to actually vet them and get them through that process.

JIMENEZ: Well, and, look, it's a process where I mean, the nominees rarely fail, but it happens. It happens where those nominees don't get the votes.

I mean, how often, how prevalent is that?

MATTINGLY: You make a great point in the sense of every administration for the last 40 years has had at least one nominee not make it through. Now, how they don't make it through is what's been a little bit different from this moment.

This is when Senator John Tower, former Senator John Tower, he was picked by George H.W. Bush to be the secretary of defense. Being a former member of the chamber, you assume that person's going to get through the process. He ended up failing. It was a shocking moment, the only nominee rejected by a Senate vote in the course of the last 50 years, was the subject of an FBI investigation into drinking and sexual harassment.

What mostly -- what happens generally for all the other administrations, I think Trump had six nominees, they were withdrawn. They see the writing on the wall, they understand where the votes are, and they decide not to move forward. The administration pulls the nominee.

We saw it once with the Biden administration with Neera Tanden's nomination.

JIMENEZ: Yes, that's the thing. Like, maybe they might get pulled beforehand if it's clear that they don't have the votes.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

JIMENEZ: But all of this that we're talking about is if there is actual -- actually a Senate vote.

So where do recess appointments -- Senate vote for an actual nominee.

MATTINGLY: Yes.

JIMENEZ: Where do recess appointments actually fall into this?

MATTINGLY: Literally in the Constitution.

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: I think this is important to note that there is precedent here, and what the former president, president-elect, has put out on TRUTH Social, is something that many presidents have done in the past.

In the Constitution, it states that the president gets to nominate his officers or Cabinet officials, and the Senate has to advise or -- advise and consent on those picks. However, because it was the 18th century and it was difficult to get to Washington, the Senate wasn't always in session, if they're out of session for a prolonged period of time, a recess, which they still take now, and for the purposes of continuity in government, the president needed his team in place.

He could appoint somebody while the Senate was out, automatically take the position, and that position could last for up to two years. Now, I think the question right now, what's also in the Constitution and what has a lot of people unsettled at the moment is this.

In times of extraordinary occasions, the president may adjourn the chambers of Congress, House and Senate, to such a time as he shall think proper. This provision we have highlighted here has never been used before. The president, former president, president-elect Trump -- going to get used to how to say that -- threatened...

[13:10:16]

JIMENEZ: And you have just seen a majority vote to sort of get to that threshold or...

(CROSSTALK)

MATTINGLY: No, no, no.

JIMENEZ: OK.

MATTINGLY: So this is -- I will get to that in a sec.

JIMENEZ: OK. MATTINGLY: He threatened this in 2020, which is basically the president says to both chambers of Congress, I'm adjourning you based on this authority, and therefore he could make recess appointments because they're out of session until he tells them to come back. Never been done before. That is kind of the nuclear option here.

What could happen, and what the president has suggested is he could tell the Senate to go on recess. They would be able to do that with, as you noted, a simple majority vote. I think the real question right now is, if they don't want some of these nominees, why all of a sudden would they all vote to adjourn Congress so the president could go around them?

The advise-and-consent piece of this is very important. Senators are very, very protective of their prerogative, and how that plays out over the coming weeks is going to be critical to see if we actually get to this point.

JIMENEZ: Yes, to get to this point, you would be giving up as a senator your advise-and-consent sort of power in this dynamic.

But we have seen it used before, not this particular aspect of it, but recess appointments. I mean, how often does that happen?

MATTINGLY: I think precedent here is really important, and that is that that past presidents have used them at a regular basis. You saw Ronald Reagan, Clinton, Bush all had more than 100 recess appointments. Barack Obama had 32, but the process largely ground to a halt because of a Supreme Court case when Barack Obama made a recess appointment.

He was sued in 2014 over it. That's Supreme Court case actually dictated that 10 days is what constitutes a recess. That's how long the Senate would have to be out to do what the former president wants.

JIMENEZ: And just to note, because you said there were up to 100 appointments, we're talking about appointments well beyond a Cabinet at this point.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Oh, yes.

(CROSSTALK)

JIMENEZ: Yes, of course, yes, yes, just for people watching, yes, of course.

MATTINGLY: There's 1,000-plus positions. It's not just Cabinet positions, right.

JIMENEZ: Of course. Of course. Phil, always appreciate you being here. Thanks for breaking that down.

MATTINGLY: Thanks, buddy.

JIMENEZ: Brianna. KEILAR: So after a series of highly controversial Cabinet picks this

week, here is what Republican senators are now saying about those recess appointments.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JOHN THUNE (R-SD): Well, I -- what I said is, Bret -- and I think this is that all options are on the table, including recess appointments. Hopefully, it doesn't get to that.

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): I don't think we should be circumventing the Senate's responsibilities, but I think it's premature to be talking about recess appointments.

SEN. JAMES LANKFORD (R- OK): Quite frankly, the Senate should be here, do its work. A recess has to be more than two weeks already. That would say that Congress is not here already doing its task.

SEN. TED CRUZ (R-TX): Look, we have a process under the Constitution where the Senate provides advice and consent, and I trust that process.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KEILAR: Joining us now to discuss is Jamal Simmons, former communications director for Vice President Kamala Harris, and Lance Trover, former spokesperson for North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum's 2024 presidential campaign.

OK, Lance, so you hear what Republican senators are saying there. You hear John Thune. He doesn't sound totally sold on recess appointments. A lot of them don't, but when it really comes down to it, what's your read?

LANCE TROVER, FORMER BURGUM PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: I would say, if you're a Republican in the Senate, cross Donald Trump at your own peril.

I mean, 95 percent of the Republican Party is aligned behind Donald Trump and his movement and what he once done. And so if you're a Republican and you don't want to vote for one of his nominees, I mean, you could be facing a primary coming up in the next election.

But, look, I think, look, is Donald Trump breaking some china? Yes. Is this a violent shock to the system here in Washington, D.C.? Yes, of course it is. But I think the guy who almost got 76 million votes, a lot of those voters would be scratching their head right now if he weren't doing some of what he's doing right now.

Remember, the average American out there hates what's going on in Washington, D.C. They think the elites here run everything and are working against them; 75 percent of this country thinks we're heading in the wrong track. So for the average voter out there...

KEILAR: But doesn't mean they all want Matt Gaetz as A.G., just to be clear. TROVER: One hundred percent.

But I'm just saying, if you go out into average America and they see the outrage machine kicked up to 10 by the Democrats and even some Republicans, that tells some of those voters, yes, maybe I made the right decision last week in choosing Donald Trump because he is taking a sledgehammer to the system.

JIMENEZ: And, Jamal, I want to bring you in on that point, because, as Lance mentions, there are a lot of people that were upset with the status quo overall. Again, maybe they weren't necessarily pulling for Matt Gaetz as an A.G. nominee, but, regardless, upset with the status quo.

If you're a Democrat right now and you're sort of assessing, to use Lance's words, the outrage level that you're having here and you see the amount of picks that have come through, whether it is Matt Gaetz or whether it's RFK Jr., whoever it might be, I mean, where do you fall there if you're a Democrat right now who you might be opposed to this, but you don't necessarily want to maybe go too far?

I mean, I don't know. Break it down for me.

JAMAL SIMMONS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: You would have to, at this point, bet that Donald Trump gets most of his nominees for precisely the reasons that Lance was just saying, because the Senate, they're watery, right? Like, these guys aren't really going to stand up to Donald Trump.

[13:15:00]

And remember when they had the Senate vote for leader, that was an anonymous vote. Everybody's going to know. MAGA is going to know who votes against some of these nominees.

But I reject the idea that people in America voted for Donald Trump because they wanted Matt Gaetz, who has been suspected of some pretty odorous things, they wanted Matt Gaetz to be in office. That's not really necessarily the case at DOJ, or Tulsi Gabbard as head of the national -- director of national intelligence.

I don't think that that's really the case. So what's going to happen, I believe, is that Donald Trump, I'm hearing, may look at some of this like "The Apprentice." Right? Let's see what happens. We put all these candidates in. Let's see who rises and falls. And they have to do that on their own weight.

And how much of it is he going to put his own political capital in jeopardy? Because, remember, he also cares about how people think about him. So is he going to put his political capital in jeopardy to get some of these people through?

And I just don't know if that's necessarily the case either.

JIMENEZ: And, Lance, I mean, along these lines, we learned today Speaker Johnson is requesting the Ethics Committee not release the report on Matt Gaetz.

I mean, is the speaker telegraphing to members of his Congress who aren't Gaetz fans to sort of keep a lid on this? But, also, if you're a Republican senator, wouldn't you want to know what's in that report if you are potentially going to vote to confirm this nominee?

TROVER: I'm sure the Senate wants to know everything. But if they release this report or leak this report out there, the Ethics -- they might as well just close up shop, because they would be violating their own protocols.

Let's remember, this was created by Nancy Pelosi and has been a witch- hunt machine for members of both parties for years. Nobody likes it over there in the House at all. But one of their protocols and one of their -- that they live by is they don't release these reports.

So if they're going to go out and release it or they're going to go out and leak it out there, then they might as well close up shop because they have zero credibility left at that point.

KEILAR: All right. So, Jamal, Thune has raised the specter of the report leaking. I hear what you're saying, Lance, but he's raised this, saying his guess is at some point it gets out there. Do you think that is a threat? Do you think that is reality?

And either way, if you see that as a Republican saying, hey, Matt Gaetz, this is going to come out, you're really sure you want to go through this, do you think they might just be underestimating his threshold for public humiliation?

SIMMONS: Well, I think we have been -- everyone has been underestimating Donald Trump and his cronies for the last 10 years, and they keep showing up.

Here's what I think is also -- the best option for everybody is for Matt gays to withdraw, right? Because we know that this stuff is going to come out. We know he's going to be drug through the mud and everybody's going to have to either go along with co-signing somebody who may have been a sex trafficker and a drug user, as he's accused of.

We don't have the evidence yet. But if that happens, every one of those senators is going to have to answer for that when they face the voters. And for the senators who are up in the next two years, sure, it might help them out in the primary, but a lot of those states, Donald Trump didn't win them by that much.

So there's just no telling what really happens. And, lastly, even if some of these people get across the finish line and get put in office, it could be grand opening, grand closing, right? People get in. As soon as they get a hold of the bureaucracy, the bureaucracy gets ahold of them. They don't last very long.

We saw that in the first Trump administration, people like Reince Priebus, who was only there for six months, or the HHS secretary, Tom Price, who didn't last very long. Some of those folks had to go. So this is -- the story is not over yet.

Democrats, be patient, pick your spots, and take out for the ones you can get and let some of these guys and women go through.

KEILAR: Some of these Republicans in the Senate don't have a primary for six years. We should remember that. They aren't House members.

Jamal and Lance, thank you so much to both of you.

And ahead this hour on CNN NEWS CENTRAL: Are the Kushners headed back to D.C.? We're learning president-elect Trump's son-in-law could play a critical role in his second administration.

And our Sanjay Gupta just wrapped up a yearlong investigation into weight loss injections like Ozempic. He's going to tell us what he discovered about these revolutionary medications and their potential for long-term side effects.

JIMENEZ: And disturbing revelations in the death of Georgia nursing student Laken Riley, as prosecutors reveal her smartwatch captured a 17-minute fight for her life.

That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[13:23:36]

KEILAR: A familiar face will likely play a key, but outside role in president-elect Trump's Middle East efforts, his son-in-law Jared Kushner.

But diplomats and Trump allies believe that Kushner would hold no official administration job. His critics point out that Kushner has significant financial interests in the region.

JIMENEZ: And they also note the deep ties he developed when he was the chief Middle East negotiator during Trump's first administration. Kushner is credited for helping craft the Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel and two Arab nations.

CNN's Kylie Atwood joins us now.

So, Kylie, I mean, what more do we know about what Kushner might be doing here?

KYLIE ATWOOD, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, look, it's because of those deep relationships that he built during the first Trump term that he is expected to play a pivotal role in the Trump administration's second-term Middle East policy.

When you talk to regional diplomats, they say that Kushner has something that the incoming members of Trump's Middle East team don't. And that's trust within the region within these world leaders who he was able to connect with. We know the stories of him texting with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, staying up late into the night with him. He's just one of the leaders he had a relationship with.

And they say that that trust is really significant. Now, we should also note that there are likely to be some complications this go- around, because Jared Kushner set up an investment fund in the last few years. And one of the investors to that fund is Saudi Arabia, $2 billion.

[13:25:00]

So there are some diplomats that I have talked to who have said, yes, we're a little concerned about there potentially being a prioritization of the U.S.-Saudi relationship that could financially benefit Kushner, particularly if he's involved here.

But another thing that folks have pointed to when it comes to his role and how he would approach this are recent comments that he made that were seen as very disconnected from the reality on the ground with regard to the war in Gaza. He talked about there being beachfront property as an opportunity there to develop.

I want us to listen to those comments, and then we can discuss them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JARED KUSHNER, FORMER SENIOR PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: And Gaza's waterfront property, it could be very valuable to -- if people would focus on kind of building up livelihoods.You think about all the money that's gone into this tunnel network and into all the munitions, if that would have gone into education or innovation, what could have been done.

And so I think that it's a little bit of an unfortunate situation there, but I think, from Israel's perspective, I would do my best to move the people out and then clean it up.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ATWOOD: Now, I talked to people about those comments and they said they don't expect him to make comments like that going forward, not only because they irritate and make really depressed the Palestinian people, but also the Arab nations in the region that stand by the Gazans, who have been through such horrific -- the last year.

The other thing when it comes to Kushner, though, that we will be watching is how he interacts with the members of Trump's incoming Middle East team. I have been told by a source familiar with the situation he's available to advise and discuss the situation with them. We know he's already had such a meeting with Steve Witkoff, who's going to be the Middle East envoy.

KEILAR: Really interesting. Kylie, thank you so much.

We appreciate the report.

And let's turn now to Barak Ravid, politics and foreign policy reporter at Axios. He's also a CNN political and global affairs analyst.

Barak, talk to us a little bit about what the expectation is of the interaction with a Trump term on how things shape in Israel. How could Trump winning impact the possible annexation of the West Bank by Israel, for instance, which far right members of Netanyahu's coalition are pushing for?

BARAK RAVID, CNN POLITICAL AND GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Well, Brianna, I think one of the things I hear from a lot of people in the Trump orbit is that all those voices in Israel calling for annexation are getting way, way, way ahead of themselves and don't really understand where Trump really is these days, especially on the issue of the Middle East.

In the first term, Trump wanted to get an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. I think this goal is still relevant for him today. He still wants to get it. This time, he wants to get it as part of a broader regional deal with Saudi Arabia. This is where Trump is aiming at, at least at the moment. So he's not aiming at annexation of anything.

He's aiming at a peace deal. And in order to get that, he will need to get Netanyahu to a totally different place where he is right now. And he will have to end the war in Gaza. Without that, he won't be able to get any progress.

KEILAR: So that misunderstanding of where Trump is, is that a belief, Barak, by people in Netanyahu's coalition that they may have carte blanche to do what they want and that Trump will enable that?

RAVID: Well, I think they're miscalculating.

And they're miscalculating maybe based on things from the past or of all sorts of misconceptions, at least at the moment. I do not get the sense from all the people I talk to that there's any intention by Trump or his team to give a carte blanche for the settlers or for Netanyahu to annex the West Bank.

And I will tell you another thing. When I speak to people in the Palestinian leadership, they tell me that they were very surprised by Trump's positive tone in his conversation with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and his emphasis on the fact that he wants to try and get a deal this time around.

But the key will be the war in Gaza and, as part of it, some sort of a hostage deal. And in two months, this will be Trump's responsibility. And just to give you a sense, tonight, on one of Israel's big television channels, there was a poll that showed that 69 percent of Israelis want the hostage deal and only 20 percent want the war to continue.

Netanyahu for now is with the 20 percent and not with the 69 percent. And the question is, where is Donald Trump going to be?

KEILAR: Yes.

You also have exclusive new reporting on Israel's retaliatory strikes on Iran in October, Barak. Tell us about what Israel hit and why this is so notable.

RAVID: So I think the interesting thing is that Israel hit a facility in Parchin, 30 kilometers, 20 miles southeast of Tehran.