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Carter's Casket Arrives At Joint Base Andrews Soon; Trump Not Ruling Out Military Force To Take Greenland, Panama Canal; Appeals Court Rejects Trump Request To Delay Hush Money Sentencing. Aired 1:30-2p ET
Aired January 06, 2025 - 13:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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[13:33:57]
PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: The late former President Jimmy Carter is making his final journey to Washington, D.C. And in the next hour, Special Air Mission 39, which is carrying the remains of the 39th president and his family, is also there, is expected to land at Joint Base Andrews in Maryland.
CNN's Phil Mattingly joins us now from Joint Base Andrews.
So walk us through, Phil, what we can expect when the casket arrives.
PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR & CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Pamela, what's striking in this six-day state funeral for the 39th president is how many elements are so deeply personal, so deeply symbolic to the man that he was throughout the course of his life, with the exception of what's about to happen here in the course of the next hour or so.
When he lands here at Joint Base Andrews, you will see something that is very traditional, tracks with the same types of ceremonial elements that we saw when Ronald Reagan came back to Washington for the state funeral, when George H.W. Bush was brought from Texas back to Washington for the state funeral.
In fact, the plane that Jimmy Carter's casket is on right now is the same exact plane that George H.W. Bush used in his trip from Texas to this airport here a few years ago.
[13:35:03]
What you will see is the casket will be removed. There will be an Honor Guard that will be there. And you will immediately see very symbolic elements of reverence for the office itself. You will see. "Hail to the Chief" -- you will hear "Hail to the Chief." You will see a 21-gun salute.
There will be one Carter-esque element here. And that is the Christian hymn of "Abide with Me" that will be played as his family and the Honor Guard procession and clergy make their way to the motorcade where the body will be placed for that 45 minute journey. Pamela, into Washington, D.C.
And that, once he makes that journey, will kind of integrate the personal nature of things, going to the naval memorial. Then he will be transferred into a horse-drawn caisson, where he'll be taken up Pennsylvania Avenue from the naval memorial to the capital.
It will be a representation of what he did, the first in history back in 1977, during his inauguration, stepping out of the motorcade and walking with his family down Pennsylvania Avenue for the inauguration. This time, he'll be going the other way to the capital, where he'll lie in state.
But, Pamela, throughout the course of this several-days process -- there will be six in total -- we have seen so many elements of a man that for Georgians, for those in Plains, for those here in Washington, certainly looked at as more than just a politician, more than just a president, and one that they certainly want to remember in the days ahead.
BROWN: Certainly.
Phil Mattingly, thank you so much.
And just ahead on CNN NEWS CENTRAL, more on Donald Trump's wide- ranging press conference. What he said about pardoning January 6th rioters, taking control of Greenland. We're going to dive into that a little bit more and then renaming the Gulf of Mexico.
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[13:40:44]
BROWN: Last hour, an extraordinary news conference at Mar-a-Lago where President-Elect Trump spoke and took questions for more than an hour on a wide range of issues.
He refused to rule out pardons for the most violent January 6th rioters, and he said he can't rule out using military force to take over Greenland and the Panama Canal. And he talked about economic force or potentially trying to annex Canada.
Trump veered into other topics as well, including President Biden's new ban on offshore oil and gas leases.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: The 625 million acres -- people can't realize. It's like the whole ocean. You have an acre, you have a big deal.
Now you multiply that by 625 million acres. It's like -- feels like the whole ocean.
It's called rain comes down from -- comes down from heaven. And they want to do no -- no water comes out of the shower. It goes drip, drip, drip.
We're going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, which has a beautiful ring.
The windmills are driving the whales crazy.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
BROWN: Joining us now to discuss is T.W. Arrighi. He is a former aide to Senator Lindsey Graham and Mike Pompeo. And he's also vice president at the Push Digital Group. Also with us is Nomiki Konst, a former surrogate for Senator Bernie Sanders.
T.W., I want to start with you on what Trump said about not ruling out military force to try to take over the Panama Canal and Greenland. What do you think? Bluster, negotiating tactic, a real threat? What's your view?
T.W. ARRIGHI, VICE PRESIDENT, PUSH DIGITAL GROUP & FORMER AIDE TO SENATOR LINDSEY GRAHAM AND MIKE POMPEO: I think it could be a negotiation tactic. I don't know. I haven't spoken to the president about it.
But I want people to realize that the Greenland conversation and Panama is actually just good statecraft. Could you imagine our posture toward Russia, our defense posture, if we didn't have Alaska or with China, if we didn't have Guam?
Well, when we were going to acquire both those areas, you heard a lot of the same arguments you're hearing now about Greenland and -- and Panama.
But I want to just say there are more people who live in Casper, Wyoming, than Greenland, which is our least populous state.
And the fact of the matter is, China and Russia are licking their chops about making a move against Greenland because the Arctic is so vital for future trade routes, minerals, military.
It is very much in our national interest to buy it from Denmark because they do not have the resources to keep China and Russia at bay in the Arctic.
BROWN: You say buy it from Denmark, but as you just heard there, Trump did not rule out using military force.
And you do have to wonder, you bring up, you know, Russia, you bring up China, how they're viewing these comments and whether they view it as maybe a way to be emboldened when it comes to Ukraine and Taiwan.
ARRIGHI: Well, I'm not so sure about that. I know in the context of the Arctic, which is going to be one of the major hot spots in the future, I do actually believe Russia is bold enough to make a move at Greenland.
As the Arctic ice shifts, you will see trade routes open up. Mineral deposits are massive there. And Denmark is not in a position to defend adequately against it. It's in our national interest to take control of it.
BROWN: Nomiki, to go to you on this, you know, you might think some of these things sound outlandish or unrealistic.
But could some of them -- some of this get support from Democrats in Congress? As you hear Trump say, time and time again, he is claiming a mandate to lead from the election.
NOMIKI KONST, FORMER SURROGATE FOR SENATOR BERNIE SANDERS: Well, he didn't really win by a mandate. I mean, the margins were very close. And we know what the numbers in Congress are right now and how close that is.
And so his mandate is very much reliant on Congress, which is not beholden to him. They're beholden to their voters, especially the Senate.
But, you know, when you look at a situation like the - the -- what's happening with Russia right now, they're stretched too thin.
I don't see Russia going into Greenland anytime soon or to Denmark when they can barely keep up the war in Ukraine right now. And every other country they're trying to occupy in the Caucasus region is not having it.
With that being said, this was supposed to be an economic development speech, and all I heard was empire building. It was like the ghost of Teddy Roosevelt had come back and was speaking through, you know, Donald Trump and his crazy whale conspiracies and windmill conspiracies.
[13:45:07]
If he really wants this to be an economic plan, he can't say things like, we're going to invest multi-billion dollars in data centers. But oh, by the way, it's going to be Dubai that's paying for it, not the United States.
If he wants this to be an economic plan and America first and to build our economy, then he needs to think about the jobs locally. He needs to talk about those electric vehicles that has really rebuilt much of Detroit and that region, the car industry.
He needs to talk about strengthening unions. He needs to talk about what it means to invest in American jobs, not just putting the burden on taking over other countries and blaming Mexico.
You know, this is -- this is very creative positioning for him. But really what it does is it's just escalating tensions around the world by saying things like, we're going to take the Panama Canal back when its -- you know, we gave Panama back by treaty in the late 1990s.
Treaties matter. You can't just violate international law and then say, you know, NATO, we're so sick of spending money on NATO. Everybody else should pay for NATO and increase the charges 5 percent.
And Canada should be a state because we take care of them. But then you also want to take over other countries? So what, are you an empire or are you not? That's what I don't understand about Donald Trump's policies here.
BROWN: Just to follow up with you, you know, when it comes to, for example, the 5 percent GDP and the NATO countries having to pay more, I mean, you know, look, Donald Trump did talk about that in his first term, and he did get NATO countries to pay more.
And, you know, his supporters might look at that and say they should be. If the U.S. is paying what it is paying, you know, he should be putting the screws -- tightening the screws on these other NATO countries to pay more as well. What do you say to that?
KONST: And they've taken that seriously. European countries met just recently to discuss this because they are afraid that Donald Trump will completely pull out of NATO.
So his negotiation tactic is not actually in the interest of Western peace and global stability right now. Ut's in the interest, frankly, of Russia and China.
And, you know, European countries mostly know that they're so close to Russia. And they feel the repercussions right now. So they're doing what's in their best interest in investing more money.
But the reality is, is that our national security depends on NATO as well. And he's not acting on behalf of -- of Western democracies right now.
BROWN: I want to get your response to that, T.W., and also just the argument -- I heard it from Congressman Himes as well, the Democrat, that, you know, look, he won the election because of the economy is what he argued. And we heard very little about that and how he's going to improve Americans economic lives.
What do you say?
ARRIGHI: I thought I heard a lot about it. It started with a CEO who's bringing billions of dollars into this country, and I'm sure you'll be seeing more of it.
He talked about deregulation to make products cheaper for Americans and more efficient for Americans. He talked about oil exploration to bring fuel costs down, which will lower prices across the country. Those are all economic messages.
And I want to make one more point about Panama because it didn't come up. I don't think we appreciate enough that China has a chokehold on the most important shipping route on the planet.
That is so insanely important for us. And if we believe the Panamanians can handle it. All right. I would like to see the evidence of that. I think it is in our interest. And Teddy Roosevelt did a tremendous
thing building one of the wonders of the world. It's a tremendous American accomplishment, and we ought to take some ownership of that.
And I don't see -- and by the way, that also bleeds into our economy. If China starts screwing around with the Panama Canal, expect prices to skyrocket and our economy to crater.
BROWN: T.W. Naomi, thank you so much.
[13:48:39]
And just ahead, breaking news on another one of Donald Trump's legal cases, as an appeals court judge rules on the president-elect's request to delay his sentencing on Friday in the hush money case. That's next.
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[13:53:15]
BROWN: Breaking news, a New York State appeals court denies Donald Trump's bid to halt the Friday sentencing in his hush money case.
CNN's Kara Scannell is live for us right outside the court.
Take us through what happened in court, Kara.
KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, Pam, we just got that decision, the judge denying Trump's request to postpone his sentencing scheduled for Friday.
Now, this followed arguments from both Trump's attorney, Todd Blanche, and the chief of appeals at the Manhattan district attorney's office.
Much of the focus was on the question of presidential immunity. And the judge really narrowing in on this question of whether a president- elect has immunity. She was very doubtful of that, questioning.
Trump's attorney, Blanche, acknowledged that this was unprecedented, that they had no other cases to point to.
And she noted that this sentencing is set for January 10th. That is still 12 days before Trump would even be in office.
She also was pointing out some other issues here about the actual timeline in this case, saying that the judge overseeing the trial could have sentenced Trump in July.
But it was because of Trump's own requests for delays that we are now in this period where Trump is president-elect awaiting the sentencing. And that was one of the issues that the judge raised.
Also, one that the Manhattan prosecutors had argued that, again, this was Trump's asked to have this case delayed, arguing that Trump has to be sentenced at some point. So here was the window where this should happen.
So after those arguments, we heard very quickly from the judge that she was denying this. The next step here is really unclear. Trump's team could try to appeal this further through the state court system, or they could go to the Supreme Court and ask them to step in.
One of the reasons is because the arguments here have to do, in part, with presidential immunity and the specific Supreme Court decision from July. Whether the court would pick that up and if they go that route remains to be seen -- Pam?
[13:55:02]
BROWN: Kara Scannell, thank you.
We'll be right back.
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BROWN: Peter Yarrow, the singer/songwriter best known as one-third of the folk music trio, Peter, Paul and Mary, has died. He had been battling bladder cancer for the past four years, according to his publicist.
During the '60s, Peter, Paul and Mary released six Billboard top-10 singles, two number-one albums, and won five Grammys. Yarrow also co- wrote the group's most enduring song, "Puff the Magic Dragon," and he performed on CNN back in 2017.
