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President-Elect Trump to Visit Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris at Invitation of French President Emmanuel Macron; Rep. Seth Moulton (D- MA) Interviewed on Senate Confirmation Process for President-Elect Trump's Administration Nominees and Criticism Moulton Received for His Comments about Transgender Athletes. Aired 8-8:30a ET

Aired December 03, 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]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: A literal shop with a cop event for kids. Someone chose that moment to try to steal stuff.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

LT. JAMES LAMB, CHESTERFIELD COUNTY POLICE: We were able to see on video the suspect as he was concealing merchandise, and then he began making his way towards the exit.

As we approached from different directions, he tried to escape out the back of the store where he was apprehended.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: So police say the suspect was surrounded by 15 officers. They say he had nearly $1,400 worth of stuff with him. Again, trying to steal at a shop with a cop event. Bad timing.

A new hour of CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right now.

All right, this morning, an announcement from President-elect Trump, a big international trip even before he takes office again.

A voluntary missing person, voluntary. The mysterious disappearance of Hannah Kobayashi adding a sudden twist. New surveillance video shows her crossing the Mexican border alone with her luggage.

And thinking about quitting your job? Turns out your boss might be giving you -- you might just be giving your boss the greatest holiday gift they could ask for. Let me stipulate -- I am deeply satisfied with my job.

Sara is out today. I'm John Berman with Kate Bolduan. This is CNN NEWS CENTRAL.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Soon to be President Trump isn't just back on the world stage. He is about to take center stage. We are learning this morning that Donald Trump will be traveling later this week to Paris on the personal invitation from French President Emmanuel Macron for the grand opening, reopening of the Notre Dame Cathedral. This will be Donald Trump's first trip overseas since winning the election, and it will happen as a handful of his top cabinet nominations are facing more questions and more scrutiny on Capitol Hill with their confirmations hanging in the balance. Some of them, including Pam Bondi, who is up for A.G., Pete Hegseth, who is up for defense secretary, Tulsi Gabbard, who is up for DNI, they're headed to the Hill today to meet with more lawmakers to make the case, shake the hands, and maybe answer some questions.

Let's start this hour with CNN's senior political analyst Mark Preston for much more on this. Mark, can we start with Donald Trump headed to Paris, though. I want to get to nominations in a second. But in this moment, I'm going to present to you a multiple choice question, if you will, on the intent of Macron's invite, because you can just jump right on into his mind and guess. One, A, this is A, this is just old friends getting back together, B, Macron's play to position himself as Trump's favorite European, favorite ally, C Donald Trump's love of the cathedral's gothic architecture, or D, all or none of the above?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, it's definitely E, no doubt. No, I'm kidding. It's definitely D. I mean, the fact of the matter is, what Macron is doing is being very tactical right now. He's somebody who's had trouble back in his own country with his favorability rating. Inviting Donald Trump to come over for this grand reopening of Notre Dame Cathedral is something that plays very well to Donald Trump's ego.

And let's not forget, Donald Trump is somebody who has built his whole career, on what? On building things. So the fact that Donald Trump is going over there, not too surprising given that Macron is trying to position France as one of the, if not the, rather, leader coming out of Europe, especially as Donald Trump is talking about the dissolution of NATO. And we have new leaders of course, in Germany and in Great Britain, you know, from the time when Donald Trump was president before, Kate.

BOLDUAN: And we were showing video of 2017. Remember when Trump was over there for, it was the Bastille Day? And remember how much Donald Trump, putting aside the long, awkward handshakes, remember how often Donald Trump referred to that, referred back to that. It had a very big impression on him. He really enjoyed it. And to me, seeing this invitation from Macron. Now, fast forward to today, is it's also world leaders also know Donald Trump this time around. It's not as much of an unknown. Macron will know that Donald Trump will love a grand opening on the scale of Notre Dame Cathedral.

PRESTON: Playing to his ego, no doubt. But it's even his threats. Weve seen Justin Trudeau get on an airplane and get down to Mar-a- Lago, as Donald Trump has been talking about tariff threats between Canada and Mexico. We've seen the Argentine president go to Mar-a- Lago, to do what? Well, not only to talk to the American First Policy Institute, which is basically Donald Trump's think tank, but also to meet with Donald Trump. So everyone is trying to jockey right now knowing that if they can play to Donald Trump's ego, that's going to help him once he takes office.

[08:05:04]

BOLDUAN: On Donald Trump's cabinet nominations and the road to confirmation, some, for some it may be a tough road. There is, we know that still the Trump transition is ignoring the standard of putting these cabinet nominations up for -- to face FBI background checks, which is breaking from the standard. We are seeing now more openness from more Republican senators, especially to go along with that, just be OK with that.

I had two staffers from Senate Judiciary, former staffers on yesterday, and Mark, a Democrat and Republican, and these are two guys that ran vetting for that key committee for years. And they called breaking from this tradition appalling and dangerous. But it just seems to be evaporating into the ethers of just like this is all happening and it's just going to move forward no matter what. I am still a little bit shocked how easily people seem to be going along with just not worrying about the standard of FBI checks.

PRESTON: You know, Kate, I don't want to go back too many years, but you and I both spent a lot of time on Capitol Hill covering Capitol Hill, and it's the norms of what basically governed and guided how things got accomplished or didn't get accomplished on Capitol Hill. It really comes down to the number three. And if Donald Trump can keep less than three senators, and I mean senators, I mean Republican senators from opposing what he's doing, then Donald Trump's going to be able to do whatever he wants. There will be no FBI background checks on some of these folks.

What that does do is it puts an incredible amount of pressure and stress now on the minority committee, which are the Democrats, to try to do these background checks as best they can for these confirmation hearings. And also, Donald Trump has talked about trying to push through as many folks as possible. Will he now put pressure on the Republicans leading these committees who are supposed to be doing the investigating in the vetting of all of this, will he put pressure on them to try to get these hearings done incredibly quick? Thats possibly and likely to happen.

BOLDUAN: Yes, it's great to see you, Mark. Thank you so much. See you soon.

John?

BERMAN: All right, with us now is the Democratic congressman from the commonwealth of Massachusetts, Seth Moulton. Congressman, thanks so much for being with us.

REP. SETH MOULTON, (D-MA): John, good to be back.

BERMAN: Kate and Mark were talking about the confirmation process here. Defense Secretary likely nominee Pete Hegseth, there's an article in "The New Yorker' that came out in the last couple of days which talks about allegations of misbehavior when he was running a charity for veterans. Just here's a quote from her. "The report, according to "The New Yorker," alleges that Hegseth had to be restrained from joining the dancers on stage at a Louisiana strip club where he brought his team. It claims that his management team sexually pursued employees and divided the organizations female staffers into two groups, "party girls" and "not party girls."

You're a marine veteran. How would you feel about someone facing these allegations leading the Department of Defense?

MOULTON: I mean, it's just absolutely embarrassing. And how as a junior officer, would I be expected to keep discipline among the marines in my platoon or whatever if we couldn't trust the discipline of the secretary of defense?

You know, when you're at that low level, as I was on the ground, you don't know about the daily decision making of the secretary. You just want someone that can set a good example and you'll have confidence in to lead this enormous department, that you'll know will make the right moral decisions when it comes to putting your life on the line. And none of this behavior from Pete Hegseth will give any confidence to the troops that that's the case.

BERMAN: I want to ask you about an op-ed that you just wrote in "The Washington Post." You've been in the news a little bit recently. You wrote the op-ed after the reaction to a statement that you had made that you would have concerns about your daughter playing sports with transgender girls or women. And you talked about the backlash against that. And you said in this op-ed that you've been getting calls, actually, of support from Democrats. Here's a quote, "They were simply glad that a fellow Democrat would violate the moratorium on speaking our minds." It's the last part of that quote I want to ask you about. What is this moratorium on speaking your minds that you feel that Democrats have?

MOULTON: Well, we seem to have a set of liberal litmus tests. And if you don't meet those litmus tests, then you're not even allowed to share your opinion. I mean, this is the attitude that a lot of Americans feel the Democratic Party takes to the entire country. If you don't agree with us, then not only are you wrong, but you're a bad person. And these things are not up for debate.

So I gave this example of transgender women in sports. It's just one of many issues where we're not even allowed to have a debate. And many Americans are turned off by that. They say, why would I want to be a part of a party where my views aren't valid? They're not even up for discussion. The definition of a majority party is you actually encompass the majority views of Americans. And a lot of people feel the Democratic Party is out of touch right now.

[08:10:02]

So if we want to start winning again, we've got to start embracing more ideas.

BERMAN: I was tempted to call this op-ed tough love, but its more just tough. I mean, there's not a lot of love in it, frankly. You have another quote in there that says this should have been an easy election for Democrats. MOULTON: It should have been. And you'll hear every excuse in the

book right now in Washington. There's a lot of denial in the Democratic Party. Incumbents across the globe were losing, or we didn't do as badly as the president in the House, for example. I mean, every excuse in the book. And the reality is we've got to look ourselves in the mirror and say, we lost. We lost across the board. And we got to make some changes if we want to start winning again.

BERMAN: Do you think Trump is right about stuff? Is that what you're saying here?

MOULTON: What I'm saying is that Trump, despite his sort of twisted morals and unconscionable beliefs in many cases, is able to tap into Americans' real fears and concerns. He's able to give voice to them.

And when we deny those fears, for example, when we just said, oh, there's no problem at the border, or don't worry about inflation, it's going to go away, when we just deny those fears, then people are not going to trust us. We need to be trusted as honest brokers, and that means you're willing to have a debate about some of these issues, not just shut people down if they disagree with your point of view.

BERMAN: As I said, some of these comments have caused a bit of a stir around the country, and in commonwealth. Are you worried about being primaried?

MOULTON: I probably will be primaried. And that's great. That just proves my point, is that you can't speak a sentence that's out of line and not get backlash from the left. But that's OK. This is a democracy. I'm going to speak my mind. I'm going to give voice to the concerns that I hear from the constituents that I represent. And I'm going to keep doing that.

BERMAN: Last question. I haven't had a chance to ask you this yet, but President Biden had promised that he would not pardon his son Hunter. He did pardon his son Hunter. How do you feel about that?

MOULTON: I understand his instinct as a dad. I do. But when you're the commander in chief, there's something higher at stake, which is the Department of Justice, the system of justice that we have in America. And the reality is that Trump is already trying to abuse the system of justice. He's already trying to use the Justice Department for his own political ends. And I fear this is just going to give him another excuse.

BERMAN: Congressman Seth Moulton from the commonwealth, thanks so much for being with us, I appreciate it.

MOULTON: Good to see you, John.

BERMAN: Kate?

BOLDUAN: Coming up for us this morning, the woman who snuck through multiple layers of airport security to stow away on a flight to France, she's going to be sent back to the United States today. How she managed to pull it off, and the major security concerns exposed by this scam.

And after pushing conspiracy theories about the 2020 election, rightwing activists turned director Dinesh D'Souza is now admitting some of the claims in his film "2000 Mules" are false.

And the wild story of a couple in California who survived after their car went over a cliff crashing into the water below.

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[08:17:33]

BOLDUAN: This morning, a 57-year-old Russian-American woman is set to return to New York. This time, she's going to be accompanied by six US Marshals to make sure nothing goes wrong, because so much had gone wrong to get to this point.

Let me set the scene for you: A Delta flight going from JFK to Paris last week. The woman somehow slipped past multiple layers of airport and airline security to jump a flight she had no ticket for to Paris.

She was discovered mid-flight as she had been bathroom hopping, which I didn't even know was a thing, throughout the journey.

After landing at Charles de Gaulle, she was arrested and then made to return to the US on a flight on Saturday, but-but-but she caused such a disturbance on that flight that she was removed before it took off.

One passenger told CNN she kept saying, "I don't want to go back to the US, only a judge can send me back to the US."

Joining me right now is CNN transportation analyst and former inspector general for the Department of Transportation, Mary Schiavo.

Mary, I mean, there is so much going on here. I had to like list, that's why I wanted to kind of play out the timeline here for people on how we got to this point.

And now, we know, that inspectors from TSA are preparing a civil case against this woman after reviewing the airport security video from inside JFK. What does that mean?

MARY SCHIAVO, CNN AVIATION ANALYST: Well, the TSA says that they have to prepare a civil case because only the Department of Justice, the FBI, and federal prosecutors, the US attorney's offices can bring the criminal cases, but they should be preparing or at least working up information for a criminal case that they can present for prosecution.

Because obviously, this case has just gotten bigger by the day because of, for example, the escapade on the first flight back to the US where she was screaming and yelling, and there is some video if it's authentic, floating out there on the internet, where another passenger filmed her.

You know, she was rather disruptive and that's a crime. You can't disrupt a flight. So, while they're preparing a civil case, criminal charges would be possible depending upon the other agencies investigating the matter.

BOLDUAN: And as we learn more of the details of how this woman or just the fact that this woman slipped through security and Delta checkpoints, what all had to go wrong for her to be able to pull this off and get on that flight, Mary?

SCHIAVO: Well, you said it best. A lot had to go wrong and did go wrong. And you know, for example, just yesterday, the fact that they put her on a plane to send her back to the US, to face some pretty serious questioning, charges, and investigation without law enforcement is really inexcusable.

[08:20:13]

Once again, it makes aviation security look like the gang that can't shoot straight.

And so, you know, so much wrong. First of all, when you book a ticket, which, of course she didn't do, your check, there is a preliminary check when you book, a preliminary security check, of course, with your ticketing, you have to present that to the TSA. You have to check in. They have a second check there where you are a passenger.

Other than a few airports in the USA that believe it or not, let people through to dine and shop at the airport, there are six or 10 airports that do that.

And then, once you get to the gate, there's yet another passport check because it's an international flight and a ticket check, and then not being seated on the plane, the bathrooms weren't checked. Many airlines require the bathrooms to be locked before takeoff so you can't have a bathroom hopper because this has happened before.

So, a lot of things went wrong. And what the United States has to find out is it just, you know, everything all at once went wrong, or is this how lax we have gotten?

And the biggest question is for the TSA, how did she get past the TSA screening checkpoint? Granted, her bag was checked to take out the water, but her ID was not and that is the biggest loophole for me because that was supposed to be our safeguard against another 9/11.

BOLDUAN: Yes, and there are so many questions to this. I mean, what --

SCHIAVO: Right.

BOLDUAN: And maybe this is a one off and just a wild like coincidence that so many things went wrong to add up all to one -- add up altogether. But what do airlines and airports need to learn from this and learn from this very quickly.

SCHIAVO: Well, and since this has happened to Delta twice in a year, Delta had another one of these back earlier in 2024, is that the rules are there for a purpose. You know, now this has caused a tremendous amount of money, of upset. I didn't -- I wouldn't want to have been the passenger next to this woman on her first flight back to the United States because the video, if it's accurate out there, she was rather agitated and flailing et cetera.

But, you know, a lot of things were not done. And if that's the daily operation of the airport, we are not secure. And remember earlier in November, Poland arrested four people who Poland says -- it is reported in the media that Poland said were Russians trying to get bombs onto planes bound for the US. So that should have been a serious wake-up call and yet look at the security that we have.

So, there are a lot of people that have to answer questions. And I, frankly, would start with TSA because they didn't know who this person was and she wasn't ticketed. And yet they're supposed to stop exactly this kind of person.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Mary, it's great to see you. Thanks for coming in.

SCHIAVO: You too. Thank you.

BOLDUAN: Coming up for -- thank you. Coming up for us, he is still the richest man in the world, but Elon Musk just missed out on a huge payday after a judge ruled he was not entitled to a $56 billion payout.

And Oxford University has picked its word of the year. How the term that actually first appeared more than a century ago is gaining traction once again on social media.

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[08:27:39]

BERMAN: This morning, the filmmaker behind the election conspiracy film "2000 Mules," Dinesh D'Souza now admits some of the claims made in that film are flawed. It debuted at Mar-a-Lago in 2022.

Let's get right to CNN's Donie O'Sullivan.

So Donie, who, by the way, I should note, is not far from Mar-a-Lago right now in West Palm Beach. You look positively glamorous this morning, Donie. Why did D'Souza decide to come clean?

DONIE O'SULLIVAN, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Thank you John.

BERMAN: Why now? Why is D'Souza coming clean now?

O'SULLIVAN: Yes, well, look the long story short on this is that, this movie "2000 Mules" for those of our audience who may not have had the pleasure of watching it allege that voter drop boxes, places that people go and drop their votes all around the country were the scenes of mass voter fraud. And this very elaborate, far-fetched movie that was released in 2020, and as you said, debuted close to here in Mar-a- Lago. Trump was there. He was in attendance and praised the movie.

They tried to say that people who they called mules were showing up at drop boxes with all these fraudulent ballots, stuffing the drop boxes with votes and that's how they were committing voter fraud. There was no evidence at all whatsoever for this. So many different authorities investigated this even Trump's former attorney general, Bill Barr, said there was nothing in the movie that showed widespread fraud.

One individual who was shown in the movie on surveillance footage is a man in Georgia, and they alleged -- the movie suggested that he was one of these so-called mules. Georgia authorities investigated. He is not a mule. He was bringing his own vote and ballots belonging to his family to this drop site.

So, he sued. He said that his life has been turned upside down because of this, and that is in part why Dinesh D'Souza, the creator of this film is apologizing.

Dinesh D'Souza, by the way, who received a pardon from Trump, during Trump's first administration related to election finance crimes.

BERMAN: Yes, I figured there might be a lawsuit involved explaining why D'Souza decided to change his tune on everything. What kind of reach did this film have, Donie?

O'SULLIVAN: It's really hard to underestimate, John, just how big this movie is. I hear about it all the time. Two-and-a-half years since its release, it really is one of the core pieces of propaganda that undermined Americans' face in US elections. Just even recently, somebody brought it up in conversation. Have a listen.

[08:30:20]