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Ernst Won't Commit to Supporting Hegseth; November Jobs Report; The Crypto Craze; Quake Prompts Brief Tsunami Warning; Eras Tour Comes to End. Aired 8:30-9a ET

Aired December 06, 2024 - 08:30   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:33:02]

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: Pete Hegseth is wrapping up a week spent fighting to save his nomination to be the next Defense secretary. Daily meetings on Capitol Hill, a full on media blitz that even included his mother, and also facing brutal questions that a nominee for anything does not want to face about alcoholism, womanizing and embezzlement.

And after all that, one senator it's believed he must win over is Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst. She is a veteran and a survivor of sexual assault herself. She sat down with Hegseth yesterday, and here's what she said afterward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. JONI ERNST (R-IA): He will continue with the vetting process. I think that that is incredibly important.

BIL HEMMER, FOX NEWS HOST: It doesn't sound, on your answer, that you've gotten to a yes. If I'm wrong about that, correct me. And if that is the case, it sounds to me as if the hearing will be critical for his nomination. Am I right about that?

ERNST: I think - I think you are right. I think for a number of our senators, they want to make sure that any allegations have been cleared.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: And with me right now is CNN political commentator Alyssa Farah Griffin, who was also the press secretary to the Defense Department during Trump's first term, which is - well, you had other jobs as well, but this is particularly relevant here, of course.

When Joni Ernst says that, what do you think?

ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: It's noncommittal. Listen, the senators are largely doing what they're supposed to. Their advise and consent role. They're taking the meetings. They're asking him questions. And they're not showing a lot of leg on whether they're going to be with him or not. BOLDUAN: Yes. She's not a no, she's not a yes, right?

GRIFFIN: Yes, exactly.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

GRIFFIN: And she's critical because this is someone that a lot of Senate Republicans would love to see Donald Trump pick if he were to pull Hegseth's nomination.

BOLDUAN: Very respected.

GRIFFIN: She's someone who'd get bipartisan support. She's beloved within the Pentagon. After her post on Armed Services, she deals with Pentagon officials regularly.

I think that, honestly, as much as the more scandalous allegations are what drive the headlines, the real worries I'm hearing from Senate staff is just the simple qualifications. It's a 3 million plus organization. It's an $80 billion plus budget.

[08:35:00]

BOLDUAN: $800 billion.

GRIFFIN: $800 billion.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Yes.

GRIFFIN: It is the hardest organization to run in America. And he would be one of two people on the planet who could deploy the U.S. military.

So, I think if he runs into significant roadblocks, it's more because of his lack of qualifications specifically for the job.

BOLDUAN: And if you talk about - if you talk about the past, some relevant past allegations, to exactly that point, are that he has been accused of financial mismanagement of two, especially compared to the Pentagon, relatively small veterans organizations.

GRIFFIN: Exactly. We used to joke in the Pentagon that $10 million is a rounding error because the budget is so big. So, somebody who doesn't have financial management skills or has had past issues, that is not a person you could put in the most expensive organization in the U.S. government.

BOLDUAN: You have talked about how, just as you said here, that Joni Ernst would be a slam dunk for - to head up the Defense Department. Marco Rubio even. Ratcliffe, he's - he's talked about as well. Even Ron DeSantis, as you've said the same.

Yet this morning we see Donald Trump has posted just minutes ago his - it's his first public support that we've seen from him in recent days for Hegseth still. Why do you think that is?

GRIFFIN: Listen, Trump's got to be with his nominees until he's not is kind of how I interpret it.

BOLDUAN: Great point.

GRIFFIN: And like it - if what will ultimately, in my prediction, happen if Hegseth doesn't go through and get confirmed is senators are going to go to him and say the votes simply aren't there. Give us another option. We're going to get that person through.

BOLDUAN: He's -

GRIFFIN: They're not going to make it Donald Trump's problem.

BOLDUAN: Because that is - that is what happened to Matt Gaetz, right?

GRIFFIN: Yes.

BOLDUAN: There - it was the - it was the math isn't there and you didn't have Donald Trump leading that charge.

GRIFFIN: Exactly. And I - and the math is not mathing for Pete Hegseth. And I don't see how he could overcome the hurdles on kind of qualifications alone. Listen, he's a veteran, but he's never run an organization of this size. He'd be young for the role. And then add to that, you've got these allegations that are hard to look past.

BOLDUAN: (INAUDIBLE). Yes.

I want to - on this I want to play for you Hegseth's attorney, Tim Parlatore, that we - everyone knows very well. He was on CNN. He was on with Kaitlan last night. And he not only said that Hegseth's name has been put forward - has been given over to the FBI for an FBI background check, he also then leveled a threat against one of the accusers who've leveled allegations against Pete Hegseth, saying that they would take legal action if Hegseth is not confirmed.

Let me play this for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TIMOTHY PARLATORE, ATTORNEY FOR PETE HEGSETH: The false claims of somebody that was part of an extortion, that was then - that was then put out in violation of a settlement agreement, ultimately causes him to lose his future employment opportunities, then, yes, that is something that is worth bringing a lawsuit against her and her friend, and potentially even the attorney.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BOLDUAN: Parlatore says she is free to speak because one question was is she still bound by a nondisclosure confidentiality agreement. What do you say? What do you think of that?

GRIFFIN: Listen, there are jobs in the federal government where you can, frankly, have these kind of past allegations, and you could - it would be fine. It won't affect your work. The Pentagon is something where we look for people of the highest

moral character who can't be exploited by our adversaries. China, Russia, Iran are watching to see who the secretary of Defense is. And if there's stuff they can dig up for blackmail purposes, for exploitation purposes, that's dangerous. That's why those jobs go through the highest level of vetting. And I think that it's going to be a real problem for Hegseth.

BOLDUAN: There's also this new reporting that there is serious discussion going on within the Biden White House right now of considering offering preemptive pardons and/or legal aid to people who might become targets of Donald Trump when he comes into office.

The way our reporting is, is Biden's senior aides inside the White House have been deliberating for weeks about the possibility of issuing preemptive pardons. This is with a source familiar with the discussions. People like Liz Cheney, who was on the January 6th Committee, of course. Adam Schiff, Anthony Fauci, who have been targets of Donald Trump's over - over and over again.

What do you think of that coming from the outgoing administration?

GRIFFIN: I have very mixed feelings about it. I think it will probably be more widely received in a positive way than perhaps the Hunter Biden pardon.

I think people are weighing how serious they have to take Donald Trump's threats and concerns about retribution. We all remember the first term. He said he was going to go after Hillary Clinton. He never did it. He's going to come in with a herculean task on securing the border, trade, foreign policy, the world's on fire. So, I think a lot of folks are trying to weigh like what's actually necessary.

BOLDUAN: See, that's a great - and that is an important point because it's not like Donald Trump was quiet about what he wanted to see happen to Hillary Clinton before he came into office.

GRIFFIN: Right.

BOLDUAN: He's also not been quiet at all what he would like to see happen to the people I've just named out coming into office. I mean - but also running on the, I am your retribution.

GRIFFIN: Right. I don't want to be pollyannaish about it.

BOLDUAN: Yes.

GRIFFIN: It's my personal belief, knowing Donald Trump, that he's not personally likely going to target those people. But who gets into roles with the capability of doing that, that is what matters, because that's where personal vendettas on his behalf could be carried out.

BOLDUAN: Alyssa, add into this, you now have another Democratic senator, John Fetterman, saying that he agrees and thinks it would be appropriate that Biden even offer - to issue a pardon and offer a pardon to Donald Trump. [08:40:00]

Fetterman said this to you on your show on "The View" just yesterday. What would that do?

GRIFFIN: That was fascinating.

BOLDUAN: I'm asking questions we don't have answers to, but -

GRIFFIN: I thought it was fascinating when he said it. Listen, Joe Biden could do it as the sign of trying to bring people together and unite the country ahead of, you know, what was a very contentious race, an election.

I - listen, it won't be received well by Democrats. I could see it actually making some Republicans who are diehard Trump supporters be like, OK, they're willing to play ball with us. They're willing to at least acknowledge that if he's going to say Hunter Biden's indictments were politically motivated, perhaps he's acknowledging that about Donald Trump. I don't know what I'd advise him.

BOLDUAN: Yes, exactly. Exactly. We don't - we are not in the - you are not in the position to ask.

GRIFFIN: Yes. Exactly.

BOLDUAN: That's the one thing we can say about that.

It's great to see you.

GRIFFIN: Good to see you.

BOLDUAN: Thank you.

John.

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: All right. We got breaking news. Just moments ago, a brand-new jobs report. And after a lousy one last month, a pretty good one.

Let's get right to CNN's Vanessa Yurkevich.

What are the numbers?

VANESSA YURKEVICH, CNN BUSINESS AND POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: These are the numbers. This is a very, very strong jobs report for November, rebounding from October's dismal numbers, 227,000 jobs added. The unemployment rate ticking up slightly, but that's not always a bad thing. It means there are more people in the job market looking for jobs.

But I want to turn to October, if we can, because that's when we saw about 12,000 - you see the unemployment rate there - that's when you saw about 12,000 jobs added in October.

Revisions, we got that in this job's report. showed that actually it was 24,000 higher. But you're still think - you're still talking about only about 36,000 jobs added in the month of October. We're going to say that's a blip because we had the Boeing strike and we had the two hurricanes, which essentially employers maybe were not hiring, but also not reporting that they were hiring during that month.

Key areas of job growth, traditionally what we have seen, healthcare, leisure, hospitality and government. Those are the sectors that added jobs in the month of November.

What does this mean for the Federal Reserve? We always talk about them when we talk about jobs. Well, this paves the way for potential cuts. Their next meeting is in December. So, they're going to look at this in November and say, OK, this was strong. Maybe October was just a blip and we can sort of forget about that and move forward.

I think one thing to note, though, is next year we're going to start to see maybe tariffs come into play, immigration, reduced immigration. Those are things, the economy and immigration, have helped spur job growth. If those two things change under the Trump administration, these numbers could look different and the Fed's decisions could look very different.

BERMAN: Obviously, a very, very strong run of numbers right there to be sure.

YURKEVICH: Yes.

BERMAN: All right, Vanessa Yurkevich, thank you very much.

Kate.

BOLDUAN: Let's talk crypto.

BERMAN: Let's do it.

BOLDUAN: Let's do -

HARRY ENTEN, CNN SENIOR DATA REPORTER: Phil (ph) in the back.

BOLDUAN: I mean like that's what Phil reacts to?

ENTEN: Apparently.

BOLDUAN: And now he goes back to sleep.

Crypto traders rejoicing. Bitcoin is trading above 100,000 for the first time ever this week.

ENTEN: Correct.

BOLDUAN: Investors are betting on President Donald Trump - President- elect Donald Trump being a real help to crypto and letting - allowing it to reach even higher heights.

But Harry Enten has been running some numbers around this. And he's, obviously, here with me. How well is crypto doing? Let's start there.

ENTEN: Yes, let's start there with the simple question of how well is crypto doing.

All right, this is the change since Election Day. And the baseline, right, is the S&P 500. It's up 5 percent since Election Day.

BOLDUAN: Why does it keep doing that? That's so funny.

ENTEN: I think it's because my sleeve is actually dragging it along.

BOLDUAN: Just - it's like, and I don't like you.

ENTEN: And I don't like you.

BOLDUAN: Keep going.

ENTEN: Bitcoin is up 41 percent. So, way above. But Dogecoin, which I think a lot of people haven't heard of, it started basically as a joke about a decade ago, that's up 167 percent. Obviously, DOGE, the DOGE caucus, everything, the DOGE administration leading Elon Musk, I think that's part of the reason it's up, but not all of it, up 167 percent.

So, the bottom line is this, Kate Bolduan, no matter which cryptocurrency you look at, you see massive growth compared to the baseline of the S&P 500. Forty-one percent, up 167 percent, versus just 5 percent of the S&P 500, which is where I actually park my money.

BERMAN: Yes, exactly. And people would say that's very smart of you.

Why are people buying crypto? I mean is it - is it - it's just fun to do so right now? I mean is that where we are?

ENTEN: Is it just fun to do so? I mean, the bottom line is this, they're not making it. They're not buying it to make online payments or make payments in person. Just 5 percent of folks buy crypto to make payments, which is actually what I think the original idea might have been to do with it. What they're really doing is they're buying it as an investment, right? Ninety-three percent of those who buy crypto say they're buying it for an investment. They're parking their money there hoping that it will climb ever higher. Whether it will or won't, who knows? But that is what the folks are hoping for. They're not actually using it for its original purpose, which, of course, was actually to, you know, buy things.

BOLDUAN: Who is buying crypto? Whatever that is.

ENTEN: Who is buying - who is buying crypto? I think there's this idea that it's losers in their mother's basements, but that is not -

BOLDUAN: No, I will tell you it's definitely not from what I'm hearing.

[08:45:01] ENTEN: It's definitely not. The people who are buying crypto, 23 percent of those in the upper income bracket have bought crypto compared to 18 percent in the middle income. Just 14 percent of those in lower income are buying crypto.

So, the bottom line is, the folks who are buying crypto are wealthy people. They do tend to be younger, but they are wealthy people and they are making a lot of dough right now, even if they are buying Bitcoin or they're buying Dogecoin. Either way, those gains since Election Day, in part because Donald Trump is coming into the presidency, have been flat out massive.

BOLDUAN: Let us see if this sustains.

ENTEN: If the market tumbles in its weird ways.

BOLDUAN: That's right, just like the polls.

ENTEN: There we go.

BOLDUAN: Kidding.

John.

BERMAN: Hi.

So, for many, this time of year is about giving back. But "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute" salutes five extraordinary people who put others first all year long. The star-studded show airs this Sunday at 8:00 p.m.. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ANNOUNCER: Sunday on CNN. It's a night that's good for the soul. "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute."

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, guys.

ANNOUNCER: Meet the honorees and celebrate their life changing achievements.

RACHEL RUTTER, PROJECT LIBERTAD: I'm an immigration lawyer and we are representing children for free. We help connect them with resources to help them be successful.

RON DAVIS ALVAREZ, DREAM ORCHESTRA: This orchestra offer more than just notes. This orchestra offers something for your soul.

YAMILEE TOUSSAINT, STEM FROM DANCE: We're normalizing that girls of color can do computer science and create something together. They're reminded, I can do hard things.

STEPHEN KNIGHT, DOGS MATTER: We're finding that the bond between the animal and the human becomes their motivator to stay healthy.

PAYTON MCGRIFF, SHE (STYLE HER EMPOWERED): SHE is a nonprofit that creates sustainable education and employment opportunities for girls and women around the world. It's so girl power. It's so fun.

ANNOUNCER: Then find out who will be named the CNN Hero of the Year.

Plus, don't miss a special tribute to Michael J. Fox. "CNN Heroes: An All-Star Tribute," Sunday at 8:00 on CNN.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: And, Monday, the winner of CNN Heroes will join us live in studio.

After more than 150 shows across five continents, Taylor Swift's Era's Tour comes to an end. We have new reporting on what she is planning to do next.

Look, Taylor Swift can only hope to reach the heights of "yacht rock." The smooth sounds with the jazz beat of the '70s and '80s, they are back. They are more popular than ever. There is a groundbreaking new documentary.

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[08:51:58]

BOLDUAN: So, a big sigh of relief this morning after yesterday's powerful 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast in California. It triggered fears of a tsunami. It triggered tsunami warnings. And - but, fortunately, that did not materialize, though the possibility of aftershocks is still very real. And scientists have long warned about the big one. We've always talked about that. A disaster unlike anything that the modern United States has ever seen.

Let's bring in CNN's Bill Weir. He's, of course, the person I want to ask about this.

And, Bill, what parts of the United States have the highest risk of that, of that massive natural disaster?

BILL WEIR, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, California, largely Pacific Northwest in general. We know about the San Andreas Fault, which runs along California. That - that was always the fear that that would be the big one. There's also a fault system called the Cascadia, which runs to Vancouver Island. It's a little bit north. That's what this quake might have been from there.

But this was a big wake-up call for California, especially in the north. Oregon coast there. This is the 12th biggest in history there. And no tsunami warnings. You know, a permanent one. It was a brief one. But a good test for people to start thinking about, what's my route of evacuation to high ground, because when the really big ones happen, you got maybe 15 minutes to get away from those waves.

BOLDUAN: Wow, maybe 15 minutes. I mean we've seen what a tsunami and the horror that it can bring.

We've - there's been talk of the big one for a long time, especially along - when you're talking about California. Is West Coast infrastructure ready for something like that?

WEIR: I don't know that there's any human infrastructure ready for a 9.0 quake. And you can tell the power of a quake usually by how long they last. A big one, a 9.0, would last about four minutes or so. There was a mega tsunami in 1700 that was so legendary the Native Americans told stories of how the prairie turned to ocean and put their canoes in trees. And they ran a scenario basically, they ran computer models that if a similar thing were to happen today, they predict it would basically wipe out Highway 101, caused about $70 billion in damage, and take out 100 bridges. So, even in sparsely populated areas, down in southern Oregon, way up in northern California, where not a lot of people, that would have a ripple effect in terms of the economy and basically cutting off entire towns up there as well.

You can't build for that. And these are not predictable the way hurricanes are. There's no - no correlation with the climate crisis with earthquakes. We're at the mercy of these shifting plates. If they move vertically, like if two plates, tectonic plates, shift like this, that's where the big tsunamis come. It looks like this one was a horizontal shift, or maybe the plates just pulled apart enough to rattle people's cages for a little bit. But a reminder that to live in paradise out west there comes with this warning as well.

BOLDUAN: And so - and what you just said is an interesting part of it all. So much of our discussion that you and I have, you know, over the years is about the - not in - not coming, but the current and real impacts of the climate crisis on all aspects of our life.

[08:55:04]

And earthquakes is - is a unique one because it's, as you just said, it's not that.

WEIR: Right. It's not that. It's just, we're at this sort of mercy of these shifting plates beneath our feet. There's so much energy. There's a sun beneath our feet, which could be great in terms of tapping geothermal energy and powering lives from the - from the heat below our feet. But with that comes this volatility on the fault lines and the ring of fire around the Pacific. It goes over - I covered the Fukushima disaster in Japan after that tsunami and went to these villages completely devastated. Some of the most heartbreaking tragedies I've covered are elementary schools in the - in the tsunami zone where the kids couldn't get out of the way. That is a very real concern. But the best these coastal communities can do is have warning systems in place, text messages, every modern alert system going and just try to get folks to think about where they will go should the worst happen.

BOLDUAN: Absolutely.

It's great to see you, Bill. Thank you so much.

John.

BERMAN: All right, new this morning, a jury ordered a ride manufacturer to pay $310 million to the family of a teenager who died after falling from a 400-foot free fall ride in Orlando in 2022. Fourteen-year-old Tyree Sampson exceeded the ride's weight limit by 100 pounds, but the lawsuit said information about that weight limit was not posted anywhere. The ride was dismantled and Florida later passed the Tyree Sampson Act, which established stricter amusement park safety rules.

After more than five years, the Notre Dame Cathedral reopens in Paris tomorrow. Among the dignitaries expected to attend, President-elect Donald Trump and First Lady Jill Biden. The inaugural mass is scheduled for Sunday, followed by eight days of special masses and prayers. Hundreds of artisans, carpenters and other specialists worked to restore the cathedral after that devastating fire tore through in 2019.

So, now the moment you've been waiting for. Maybe you didn't even know it. Did you know there is a color of the year. There is. And it's thanks to a company called Pantone, which basically does colors for profit. They say the color of the year is mocha mousse, aimed at our yearning for comfort and harmony, they say, which I think is presumptuous because how do they know I'm yearning for comfort and harmony? It is inspired, they say, by chocolate and coffee. The first color of the year was 1999. It was sky blue, apparently inspired by our yearning for sky blue, Kate.

BOLDUAN: Yes. Always. I like that brown color. It's very nice. I'm not going to renovate my home, though.

For nearly two years - John Berman cares deeply about this topic. For nearly two years, Taylor Swift's record breaking Eras Tour has been a global phenomenon. This weekend, after five continents, 150 shows and mark - remind you, there are three plus hours long, the tour and this era comes to an end.

CNN's Lisa Respers France has much more on what is a monumental cultural moment with this.

Lisa, the final show is in Vancouver. I took my girls to see her for the first time in Toronto a couple weeks back. And even then, she even said, I've got more shows to go, she was becoming emotional. She became emotional for a couple times during the show talking about the tour coming to an end. Are fans ready for this?

LISA RESPERS FRANCE, CNN ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: I don't think any of us are ready for this, Kate. I mean, honestly, it's been almost two years of Taylor Swift giving us her absolute all. We had - we went from Ticketmaster crashing because people wanted tickets so much, to people - I've seen people out wearing just friendship bracelets just because. So, I think the love for Taylor Swift just continues to go on and on. And she is now firmly part of our culture and zeitgeist in a way that a lot of people feel like we haven't seen since, say, a Michael Jackson or The Beatles.

BOLDUAN: No, I mean, she is an - she is a professional athlete is what I realized in seeing this show.

FRANCE: She is.

BOLDUAN: I sat down several times, and I stand - my job is to stand for hours. And, no, I am not singing. And watching that, and her team, it was - it's remarkable how she does it, I will say.

With - but I think this moment then offers a moment of reflection, right? After two years of this, and the headlines that have become just Taylor Swift just dominating headlines when it comes to her tour and far beyond, what does this say, after all of this and what she's accomplished, what does it say about Taylor Swift, this moment, and her fans?

FRANCE: I think what it says about Taylor Swift is that what she has invested over the years into her fandom has paid off in a way that she, early on in her career, knew that the fans were the most important thing. So, she would do stuff like jump on social media and comment. This was way, way back. She would have these listening parties when she would invite fans to come and meet her and listen to her new music. And now what we see is that her fandom has increased because people recognize how very much she has given to the world.

[09:00:05]

I mean a three-and-a-half-hour concert, as you point out, is nothing to sneeze at. And what