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Bipartisan Funding Deal Scrapped After Trump And Musk Derail Bill; Ex-Husband Sentenced To 20 Years In Shocking Mass Rape Trial; Putin Ready For Potential Talks With Trump, Claims They Haven't Met In Four Years. Aired 7:30-8a ET

Aired December 19, 2024 - 07:30   ET

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

[07:30:00]

JOHN BERMAN, CNN ANCHOR: So this morning we have a new report on the swirling legal issues around President-elect Trump -- ones that will not go away once he takes office in a few weeks.

CNN crime and justice correspondent Katelyn Polantz is with us now. And we're talking about the civil cases here, Katelyn.

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: John, this is one of the moments where Donald Trump is not free from exposure in court. There are civil lawsuits against him that are very likely to continue on in the coming years as he's the president.

So the standard here in court is that lawsuits against a president if it's about things that happened not for his official duties as president -- those continue on as long as they're not a burden to the presidency. So as long as they're not a time suck people can try and get information from Donald Trump.

They could get evidence from him if things go into the evidence gathering phase. They could also force him to sit for depositions that would be under oath. So that also is something that could create some sort of civil exposure.

The cases against him right now that are pending -- these are still in relatively early phases or phases where they're working out legal issues that won't require Trump to sit for a deposition.

They include a defamation case from the Central Park Five accusing him of defaming them when he was campaigning this past year for the presidency.

There's also eight ongoing lawsuits over the January 6 insurrection. A lot of questions of whether Trump will have some sort of immunity or not for what he was doing on the Ellipse on January 6. He doesn't have the type of immunity that he's getting in criminal cases. That's already been decided by the courts.

And then the last bucket of cases is about what Trump was doing when he was president but to clear protesters from Lafayette Park who were protesting the death of George Floyd. There's a big question there of whether the Justice Department will be able to stand in for Trump and protect him in that case.

But those are all ongoing. There's also some cases that he has where he's suing media outlets and the book publisher Simon & Schuster. And so all of these will plod along. It's something to watch in the future.

We have seen him be deposed several times in the past. Those depositions are not always public but occasionally they do come back to bite him a little bit. In the E. Jean Carroll case -- a case where he was sued for defamation -- he was deposed and all of -- a lot of what he was saying that was the most damaging to him in court was played at the trial, which he lost and there's an $88 million judgment -- million-dollar judgment out there against him.

BERMAN: Something that certainly bears watching even after he takes office.

Katelyn Polantz, great reporting. Thank you very much -- Sara.

SARA SIDNER, CNN ANCHOR: All right. Chaos on Capitol Hill. A man not even elected to office helping to blow up a funding bill alongside President-elect Trump. Now there is a looming government shutdown after Trump and his billionaire pal Elon Musk effectively killed a Republican spending bill that would have kept the government funded through March 14. Now Congress has about 17 hours and counting to come up with a new spending bill before tomorrow night's deadline.

CNN's Alayna Treene joining us now. Trump had some specific demands that he has put out there. Tell us what you're learning.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right and really, Sara, Trump's 11th hour interjection into all of this has really sent Washington scrambling. I'd argue that they looked like they were pretty much on a glidepath to pass this bill through March 15 -- that would fund the government through March 15 until Donald Trump kind of came in at the 11th hour bashing this and opposing the plan that Mike Johnson had cut with congressional leaders.

But one thing that's really interesting -- one of the specific demands that Donald Trump made yesterday afternoon was that he wants them to deal with a debt ceiling increase now, and this is something that I think caught many people on Capitol Hill off guard.

I want to read for you some of what he said. He said, "Unless the Democrats terminate or substantially extend the debt ceiling now, I will fight to the end." Essentially, he's saying he wants this off the table now.

Him and J.D. Vance, who was also on one of these statements, said that essentially, they recognize that the debt ceiling is a very tough issue, but they want it to be done under Biden's watch. They want him to take the blame.

And I'd remind you as well the debt ceiling negotiations are incredibly complex. They normally take several months to resolve. So this is very much a wrench in all of Congress' plans right now. But what's more as well is that we also heard Donald Trump say that Republicans who do not fall in line will have -- potentially, face Donald Trump's wrath and get primaried. He wrote this on Truth Social as well. He said, "Any Republican that would be so stupid as to do this should, and will, be primaried."

So that in itself is a big enough threat, especially when you know how powerful Donald Trump is and even more so when he takes office on January 20 -- something that definitely is concerning to many Republicans but also, of course, contributed to effectively the killing of this bill.

Now, to just take a step back and talk about where Donald Trump was on all of this before he even weighed in. We know from our conversations with those on the transition team as well as Donald Trump's allies that he was privately bashing this plan all day.

[07:35:00]

I was told specifically that he had been telling allies that he believed that this gave away way too much to Democrats. He later said something similar in his statements that he believed that Democrats should not be getting all of these priorities but also that he believes a lot of what they want to deal with in this should be done when he is in office.

We know that ever since he won the election Donald Trump believes that he has this mandate and that it's now -- even before he's sworn in it's really his Washington and his kind of game to run. And that's where some of this is coming in play as well, I'm told. All to say that this is definitely kind of blown up what a lot of people were hoping would be the deal that could avert the shutdown -- Sara.

SIDNER: We will see if they can get it together in the next 17 hours.

Alayna Treene, thank you so much -- John.

BERMAN: All right, with us now, CNN political commentators Bakari Sellers and Brad Todd.

Let me run through the timeline here. Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson makes this deal, forges this deal, writes this deal. Elon Musk criticizes it. Donald Trump gets angry about it. And I think that's basically the broad contours of the timeline.

So from your perch, Bakari Sellers, what does it look like? Who is in charge?

BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR (via Webex by Cisco): Oh, I think Vice President Trump is just kind of figuring out how he's going to navigate the next four years while Elon Musk is President of the United States.

I mean, the fact is you have these billionaires that are leading the House GOP caucus around by their nose. And this is great theater except for the fact that real American workers are going to be devastated if the government shuts down. They only have a few more hours before that occurs. And you have this game of political theater going on in Washington, D.C. with Mike Johnson, Elon Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy. People are just tweeting and giving their thoughts while at the end of the day if government shuts down a week before Christmas that's going to affect American workers.

I think the great irony in this, John, and those watching, is that you have billionaires who are -- who are guiding this discussion while the House GOP actually had the audacity to say they speak for the middle class.

BERMAN: So Brad, before we get into the merits of the debate over this spending bill, I just want to ask you how much do you think Speaker Johnson's enjoying his job this morning?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Oh, well, it's never been a fun job, but he knew that when he took it.

But I think you're letting somebody off the hook here. You know, this is -- we have -- we have a president. His name is Joe Biden. And it's his debt ceiling that's about to expire. It is his debt that got us up against it. And Joe Biden's going to shut the government down if he doesn't -- he needs to call Chuck Schumer and call Hakeem Jeffries and tell them they drove too hard a hard bargain and they've got to walk back in Mike Johnson's office and help him figure this out. This is a partisan failure on the part of Democrats who are trying to still in charge of the White House last anybody checked.

BERMAN: I just did the one -- first of all, I read this morning that they think the debt ceiling won't be reached until the summer. It's actually not on the verge of expiring right now. This is something that Donald Trump is looking to do prophylactically, as they say.

And Brad --

TODD: No. The statute says it expires on January 1. Now, you could take extreme measures to get it to June but it's still Joe Biden's --

BERMAN: That's what I mean. They --

TODD: -- spending that got us here.

BERMAN: They won't hit. They won't run up against the limit until June.

But -- and I understand what you're saying here but Mike Johnson had a deal. He had a deal -- his deal -- the speaker's deal. You're trying to put this in --

SELLERS: Correct.

BERMAN: -- Joe Biden's court. But this is the Speaker of the House. He's the guy driving this car. He made that deal.

TODD: Are you acting like we have one chamber of Congress? We have two. Chuck Schumer -- this is Chuck Schumer's deal, too. The White House was in on it. It's the White House's deal, too.

There's an obligation of both parties to keep the government open. And last I checked two of three negotiating parties here were controlled by Democrats. So they've got to come to the table and make this deal more palatable for Republicans and -- so we can pass it through the House. That's just how Congress works.

And it's sexy to talk about the tweets or the posts, or whatever you want to call it, but in the end Chuck Schumer or Joe Biden have to step up here and make a deal with Mike Johnson that can pass.

BERMAN: Look, in the immortal words of "Spinal Tap" what's wrong with being sexy?

But Bakari, to you here. Do you think Democrats should do anything at this point politically speaking?

SELLERS: Listen, Americans are getting a good reminder right now that Republicans can't govern. I mean, whether or not you're talking about repeal and replace Obamacare, whether or not you're talking about the four years of the Donald Trump presidency that were just lathered with chaos, or whether or not you're talking about this microcosm, I appreciate the fact that we're saying come together and get a deal.

The problem with that is that guess what, we have a deal. We literally have a deal. Mike Johnson --

TODD: You didn't have one in the past.

SELLERS: -- and Republicans signed off -- well, we -- that is the fault of the

TODD: It wasn't enough.

SELLERS: -- Speaker of the House. Now whether or not we call him weak or not, there's other people that --

[07:40:00]

TODD: No, it's not. It's Hakeem Jeffries asked for too much.

SELLERS: No. But he agreed to it.

TODD: Speaker Johnson gave it to him.

SELLERS: Mike -- I mean, you gave it to him. I mean, I'm only going to ask for what you're going to give and if you give it to me and we have a deal you can't blame me for making the request.

I think what we have here is the fact that --

TODD: It's not a deal until you --

SELLERS: -- Elon Musk and others -- Elon Musk and others are bullying the Speaker of the House. And we can call him a lot. This job has been too big for him for a very long period of time and the chaos will ensue. This is what we have when we have Republican leadership.

BERMAN: Is this what we're going to see, Brad?

TODD: You know, I find it really rich that at the end of an administration that is more unpopular than any we've seen in the last 20 years Bakari is talking about the failure of Republican governance. We just had a referendum on Democratic governance, and it resulted in a Republican landslide -- so much that we were gaining seats in Vermont for goodness sakes.

This is a problem that the Democrats have to help solve. It's the end of their administration. That's what has to happen now.

BERMAN: How big of a role will Elon Musk play in running the House starting at, say, about noon on January 20?

TODD: He's not running the House. I mean, he's free to comment if he wants.

But the fact is the House margins are really, really tight. You're always going to have three or four Republicans disagree no matter what. It's just a fact. And so what happens in the House is going to require some Democrats. That's going to -- that's just going to be the case.

And by the way, Democrats might ought to play nice because they don't control the Senate next chamber -- or next year and they're going to want a lot of things from Republicans then.

BERMAN: Will we see this level of function in the Republican-led Senate, too, Bakari?

SELLERS: No. They can't lead. And the fact is they're being governed by tweet right now.

And I love how my Republican colleagues, including the President of the United States, say -- the future President of the United States say they won in a landslide. Well, in all actuality they have the narrowest House majority in the history of the United States Congress. They have the second largest -- second smallest, excuse me, presidential popular vote margin. The only one that was closer was Bush V. Gore.

I mean, so -- and in the swing states you had individuals that were down-ballot who actually carried the Senate, say, for Pennsylvania. And so I love how they believe this. They're going to overplay their hand.

But at the end of the day what people don't realize is that while these billionaires -- Elon Musk and others -- who are unelected, who really have no statutory authority, who do nothing but tweet and make themselves -- enrich themselves day by day, it's the troops, it's the TSA workers, it's those individuals who have real lives who are trying to put Christmas gifts under the tree who are affected by their malfeasance.

BERMAN: Bakari Sellers, Brad Todd --

TODD: Bakari, I --

BERMAN: Brad, we actually -- I do - we do have to go. We're in overtime already. But Bakari, I appreciate --

SELLERS: Yeah (INAUDIBLE).

BERMAN: But Brad -- but Brad -- but Brad rushed in and saved us here at the end, so special thanks, Brad to coming on with us today as well. Nice to see both of you. Have a wonderful holiday -- Kate.

TODD: Good to see you.

KATE BOLDUAN, CNN ANCHOR: So, some breaking news coming in in a court case that has shocked a nation, the details of which are as hard to imagine as they are truly horrific.

Dominique Pelicot -- he's the man just found guilty and now just sentenced for drugging and coordinating the mass rape of his then-wife Gisele. And he was just handed his sentence -- 20 years in prison.

Now, over the course of a decade he subjected his wife of 50 years to be raped more than 200 times while unconscious by 70 men that he connected with online. And part of this -- that's Gisele right there. Part of this horrible case was that police uncovered hundreds of hours of footage of these rapes that Dominque Pelicot filmed himself.

Gisele Pelicot has become a symbol of strength, and courage, and humility actually throughout all of this as she opted to make the trial public -- and she could have chosen that not be the case.

CNN's Melissa Bell is outside the courthouse in France. You've been covering this as every horrific detail would come out day by day, Melissa. And today these men received their sentences. Tell us more about what is happening.

MELISSA BELL, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Well, there's been a great deal of anger actually outside the courtroom today, Kate. Because as you say, Dominique Pelicot, who orchestrated this -- who recruited these men online over the course of nearly a decade to violently abuse and rape his wife capturing the entire thing on video -- he received the maximum sentence that was being sought by prosecutors.

But the 50 other men who were on trial here today -- some of those men he recruited. Not all, because police haven't been able to identify all of the men on the videos. Fifty of them were standing alongside Dominique Pelicot -- one of them still on the run. So 49 of them in the box today. All of them, apart from Dominique Pelicot, got lesser sentences than those that were sought by prosecutors.

[07:45:00]

And so you've heard a lot of jeering and a lot of anger expressed here by the women mostly who've been coming to this court day in and day out to pay their tributes to the courage of Gisele Pelicot but also to express their anger. In fact, there's a couple of the accused who walked free because of the suspended sentences. They were jeered very loudly and violently.

We've also seen, again, Gisele Pelicot arrive in court and leave court today surrounded by people and those chanting "merci, madame" for her courage in doing what you mentioned a moment ago, which is making this trial public. It needn't have been, and if it hadn't been the courtroom wouldn't have had to see the horrific images of what was done to Gisele Pelicot.

But as she just told us in front of the court, the important thing for her was speaking to others.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GISELE PELICOT, MASS RAPE SURVIVOR (through translator): I am thinking finally of the unrecognized victims of stories which often unfold in the shadows. I want you to know we share the same fight. I would like to express my most profound gratitude to everyone who supported me throughout this lengthy trial. Your testimonies moved me, and I drew strength from them to return every day during these long days of hearings.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BELL: Gisele Pelicot, who has insisted throughout this trial "I'm just a normal person." But again, a reminder of her resilience, her courage, and her humility there.

BOLDUAN: There is so much to learn from that woman and so much still to learn from what has happened there.

Melissa, thank you so much for bringing it to us -- Sara.

SIDNER: That case is just so disturbing and just disgusting.

All right. Ahead, we are hearing now from Russian President Vladimir Putin. What we just heard him say about President Trump.

And thousands of Amazon workers go on strike smack in the middle of the holiday delivery rush.

(COMMERCIAL)

[07:51:53]

BERMAN: All right. Happening now, members of the Teamsters Union are on strike against Amazon with thousands more workers expected to join today. This was one in Illinois just a few minutes ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ASH'SHURA BROOKS, DRIVER, AMAZON WAREHOUSE: One thing that I would like to say is that there is a narrative being pushed out by Amazon that we are the monsters, and we are the problem, and we are not. How are we the problem when we have Amazon drivers in Fort Lauderdale that are delivering packages in a flood? How are we the problem when we have Amazon workers in California who have -- who were forced to work during a heatwave? We are not the problem because we're asking for what is owed.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERMAN: Now, the company says the strike will not affect deliveries, but Teamster's president Sean O'Brien says if your package is delayed during the holidays, you can blame Amazon's insatiable greed.

A spokesperson for Amazon called the strike a P.R. play and illegal -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. The Dow on a historic losing streak. It's been 50 years since it has fallen this many days in a row. So what will the opening bell on Wall Street shows us this morning? We watched as the Dow dipped by more than 1,100 points yesterday after the Fed projected only two rate cuts in 2025 instead of the expected four. The S&P and Nasdaq also saw losses.

CNN's Matt Egan is joining us from Washington, D.C. this morning. What are you expecting today? Any hints as to where the market's going to go?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Well, investors threw a bit of a temper tantrum yesterday. Thankfully, Sara, I have plenty of experience handling temper tantrums. And look, investors were not happy with what they heard from the Fed yesterday and they wanted to make sure that Jerome Powell heard their reaction.

And thankfully, we are seeing cooler heads prevail this morning. As you just showed, Dow futures are solidly higher pointing to an opening gain of about 250 to 275 points. So that is nice to see, although that would really just represent a clawing back of a fraction of the thousand points that were lost yesterday.

As you mentioned, the Dow is now 10 days in a row -- the longest losing streak since 1974. You can see on that chart it's going solidly lower in the last week to two weeks. In fact, the market has basically given back all of its post-election gains, which is pretty stunning when you think about it.

There were some real signs of nervousness in the market yesterday. We saw the VIX, the volatility fear gauge, had its biggest one-day increase since 2018.

And the clear catalyst here was the Fed, right? Not what they did. They cut rates by a quarter point. We knew they were going to do that. It was what they said about the future.

And they made clear that they're going to take it slow with interest rate cuts going forward. They're in no rush to do further cuts because 1) inflation progress has stalled, and 2) the economy is strong. It doesn't really need to be rescued. And 3) there's just so much uncertainty, especially around the new policies from the incoming Trump administration.

[07:55:00]

Take a listen to what Jerome Powell said about all the question marks right now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: The point about uncertainty is it's kind of common-sense thinking that when the path is uncertain you go a little bit slower. It's not unlike driving on a foggy night or walking into a dark room full of furniture. You just slow down.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

EGAN: And so Wall Street is expecting the Fed to slow it down. Only a small chance of a rate cut in January and 50-50 at the two meetings after that in March and May.

But Sara, I do think there is a silver lining for consumers. It's that borrowing costs should continue to come down a bit, and that the Fed thinks the economy is strong enough to handle these higher interest rates. There is no recession in sight and that, of course, is good news.

SIDNER: And we should mention that the Dow is still at a historic high. So don't liquidate your 401k at this point --

EGAN: Yeah.

SIDNER: -- think would be your advice.

EGAN: Exactly.

SIDNER: All right, Matt Egan. Thank you so much -- Kate.

BOLDUAN: So this morning the White House is announcing a new move in the battle against the climate crisis, setting a more aggressive target for cutting planet-warming pollution -- a move that almost certainly is going to be undone by the incoming Trump administration and a target seen as a challenge to pull off even if a Democrat had won the election and was preparing now to take over.

CNN's chief climate correspondent Bill Weir here with much more on this. What is this new target, and what is this really about?

BILL WEIR, CNN CHIEF CLIMATE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's based on the Paris climate accords in which every five years countries assess where they are --

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

WEIR: -- and maybe increase their ambition a little bit when it comes to carbonization.

So this is one that's even with the Inflation Reduction Act was going to meet maybe 40-50 percent of President Biden's goals. He wanted to extend this. They want to cut pollution up to 66 percent below 2005 levels within the next 10 years. That's a mouthful there.

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

WEIR: But it's really a signal to the rest of the world and to Democratic leaders -- Democrats leading big cities --

BOLDUAN: Um-hum.

WEIR: -- and corporations who are still committed to this.

The planet is still overheating regardless of the election and regardless of Donald Trump's feelings on the topic there. And smart CEOs are building in well, four years from now we don't know who could be in power again. And this is where the world is headed. So these ambitious targets need to be set, especially by the United States.

BOLDUAN: And in real and tangible things that could be happening, you were just telling me that yesterday the EPA sided with the state of California --

WEIR: Right.

BOLDUAN: -- on something that people are very focused on, which is eliminating gas in cars over a course of years.

What's happened?

WEIR: Well, Gavin Newsom set out this very ambitious --

BOLDUAN: Right.

WEIR: -- you know, 10 years from now no more new gasoline-powered cars sold in California. There's so much momentum in the EV market right now. You remember the "Who Killed the Electric Car" was a documentary from years ago. It's impossible to do it now. Forty percent of the cars in China are now electric.

BOLDUAN: Hmm.

WEIR: The rest of the world is going this way.

So even if Trump tries to get in the way this could take years in courts. And by then automakers want to know -- they want to have some certitude as to where the market is going -- will probably build their factories to where the consumers are, and that is a more electric future right now.

But I think what you're going to see -- the dynamic of Trump versus Biden is now going to shift to Trump versus Gavin Newsom --

BOLDUAN: Hmm.

WEIR: -- because California is such a huge car market. They dictate what other countries and carmakers do. So buckle up. BOLDUAN: But with the -- this one might be harder to roll back for Trump --

WEIR: Much harder.

BOLDUAN: -- versus a target that we just learned from the -- from the Biden White House announcing a target there. That's really an interesting thing to see. Let's buckle up together.

WEIR: Let's do it.

BOLDUAN: It's good to see you. Thank you.

WEIR: You bet.

BOLDUAN: John.

BERMAN: All right. Just a few minutes ago Russian President Vladimir Putin said he is ready for possible talks with President-elect Trump.

Let's get right to CNN's Clare Sebastian. This was part of his end-of- the-year news conference. He had a lot to say, Clare.

CLARE SEBASTIAN, CNN INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, he's still going, John. We're coming up to the four-hour mark which is, by the way, pretty typical for Putin when he carries out these events on an almost annual basis.

I think in terms of what we learned about his attitude towards the incoming U.S. administration -- he kept his cards pretty close to his chest, but he did make it pretty clear that he would be more than willing to engage once Trump takes office.

Take a listen. This was an answer, by the way, to a question from NBC journalist Keir Simmons during this event.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): You asked me what we can offer or what I can offer to the newly elected President Trump when we meet. First of all, I don't know when we will meet because he hasn't said anything about it. I haven't spoken to him at all in over four years. Of course, I'm ready for this at any time and I will be ready for a meeting if he wants it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SEBASTIAN: So on that more than four years comment I think, look, we have to note that the Kremlin continues to refute claims that were published in Bob Woodward's latest book that Trump held a number of conversations with Putin after leaving office. The Kremlin continues to deny that.

And I think, look, they're not giving a lot away -- a lot away. That may be a reflection of the uncertainty that is still there in Moscow over exactly how Trump's Ukraine policy will play out even as we know they have welcomed some of the commentary coming from the president- elect, including comments over the weekend that he thought it was a mistake to give Ukraine permission to use ATACMS -- missiles on Russian soil.