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Biden to Address the Nation; Jack Smith Talking with DOJ to End Trump Prosecutions; Fact-Checking RFK Jr.'s Claims on Vaccines. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired November 07, 2024 - 10:30   ET

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

[10:30:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: In about 30 minutes, President Biden will be addressing the nation following Donald Trump's election victory. We will bring that to you live.

In the meantime, the doubt is up just slightly after Trump's election victory. This comes after the stock market closed at record highs yesterday. CNN's Matt Egan joins us now. Matt, what do you make of these market reactions that we're seeing so far? I mean, yesterday, obviously, it took off like a rocket, but the market's trying to figure things out this morning. What do you think?

MATT EGAN, CNN REPORTER: Yes, Jim markets are starting today pretty quietly, maybe a bit of a hangover after that big celebration on Wall Street yesterday. We saw the Dow spike 1,500 points yesterday, about 3.5 percent, biggest one day percentage increase in two years.

Now, those gains were driven by relief, right? Investors are relieved that someone has emerged as the clear-cut winner here. Weeks of recounts and fights in court would've added so much uncertainty. So, clarity is good for investors.

There's also some excitement about the Trump agenda, in particular, tax cuts. Those will boost corporate profits. Deregulation. That's why we saw big bank stocks and crypto basically go to the moon yesterday. For now, investors are kind of shrugging off the potentially inflationary elements of the Trump agenda, namely tariffs. Those are taxes on U.S. imports, those would raise costs for companies. And for consumers and mass deportations, right? There's a risk that if you try to deport millions of undocumented workers, that could deprive some industries of workers and lift wages and prices. But for now, investors are pretty focused on the positives here, Jim.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Matt, this afternoon, the Fed is expected to cut interest rates for the second time this year. I mean, it is interesting that this is going to take place when you said inflation may be back on the rise again. I suppose the Fed may have to revisit all of this depending on how things go. But how will this impact everybody?

EGAN: Well, Jim, not much drama about what the Fed is going to do today. It looks like a slam dunk that the Fed is going to cut interest rates for the second meeting in a row. The market's pricing in about a 98 percent chance of a quarter point cut today. That comes after that half a point cut back in September.

Now, this should help borrowers because interest rates are still pretty high, right? We're still close to multi-decade highs. You can see starting to come down just a bit. So, every cut should help everyone who was trying to pay off credit card debt, trying to finance the purchase of a car. Those who have home equity lines of credit would be helped as well.

But what's interesting is the Fed has less control over longer-term rates, and those rates are what influence mortgages. And we've actually seen treasury rates spike in recent weeks. Part of that has been driven by optimism about the economy, but part of it has also been driven by concern about how a Trump administration could add trillions of dollars to the deficit and to the national debt. And you can see the 30-year fixed rate mortgage has actually moved significantly higher since the Feds started cutting rates.

So, Jim, the big question today for Jerome Powell is going to be how does he think about tariffs and the potentially inflationary aspects of the Trump administration?

ACOSTA: Yes, a lot of folks out there were hoping that mortgage rates would keep going down. We're not seeing that thus far. Matt Egan, very interesting. Thank you very much.

EGAN: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: In the meantime, Special Counsel Jack Smith is in talks with Justice Department officials over how to wind down the two federal criminal cases against Donald Trump. The president-elect has become the first criminal defendant elected to the nation's highest office for felon, and that has upended the host of legal challenges he's facing.

CNN Senior Legal Analyst Elie Honig joins me now. Elie, I guess it was anticipated that if Donald Trump were to get back into the White House that that would crush these cases and that appears to be what's taking place.

ELIE HONIG, CNN SENIOR LEGAL ANALYST: It is, Jim. And I want people to understand this is happening sort of on two levels. First of all, the blunt force instrument here is Donald Trump has announced that he will fire Jack Smith, quote, "within two minutes" of taking office. I think Jack Smith understands that. That's part of the reason he's having these conversations.

[10:35:00]

But also, separate and apart from that, Jack Smith under longstanding DOJ policy goes back to Watergate says, we at DOJ believe we cannot indict, try, or imprison the sitting president. Now, we've never had a situation, of course, before where somebody was already under indictment and then became the president, but that's about to happen. And seemingly, in reaction to that, that's another reason why Jack Smith is packing up his boxes and winding down his cases. ACOSTA: And Elie, I mean, this is also on the horizon, Trump is scheduled to appear in a New York courtroom on November 26th to receive a sentence in his hush money trial. Is there any chance that this happens? I suppose this is all in Judge Merchan's hands at this point.

HONIG: It's absolutely is all in Judge Merchan's hands. I think it's going to be a 50/50 call whether it happens or not, as Paula Reid and others have reported. Trump's team is arguing that that sentencing should not go forward because Donald Trump is now the president-elect.

If it does go forward, Jim, I think there's, again, a 50/50-ish chance that Judge Merchan will impose a prison sentence as opposed to a probation sentence, but even if the judge does hold this sentencing on November 26th, and even if the judge says, I hereby sentence you to X in prison, Donald Trump's not going to serve that time while he's in transition as he is now, or certainly while he's president. I think it's going to be just formal or ceremonial if it comes to that.

ACOSTA: And I'm sorry, Elie, what does that mean? Does that mean that he won't have to report to prison, that'll be delayed or postponed until after he leaves office the second time around? What does that mean?

HONIG: Well, that's an interesting question. So, the formal way that would happen, Jim, is something called bail pending appeal, which a lot of defendants get, someone in Donald Trump's position would normally get it, meaning you don't have to actually go to prison or start serving your sentence until all your appeals are done. That's a year or two down the line.

But I guess there's a good question you raise, I hadn't really thought about, what happens on January 20, 2029, when Donald Trump isn't finished with his second term, if he's sentenced to prison, then I think you get into a question of, is it actually going to be enforced on and I don't know, he'll be 82 years old at that point? Maybe. I guess theoretically it's possible, but that's way down the line.

ACOSTA: And, Elie, let's talk about the Supreme Court. I mean, obviously that was on the ballot this time around. American voters decided that they're OK with Donald Trump having a second term and filling the Supreme Court with more conservative justices. What could the impact be?

HONIG: This is reality, Jim. This is, I think, an under covered story. Obviously, the White House changing hands. Congress may be changing hands, but the Supreme Court is at stake as well. We currently have a six to three Supreme Court, all six Republican nominees, conservatives, three of them already Trump nominees from the first term and three liberals.

A couple things could happen. First of all, we've seen a trend of certain justices timing their retirement so that they can be replaced by likeminded conservatives or Republicans who were much younger. We saw Justice Breyer retire and be replaced by Justice Jackson, who's way younger. We saw Justice Kennedy retire. He was replaced by Justice Kavanaugh, who was 20, 25 years younger.

So, the two oldest justices right now are Justices Thomas and Alito. They're 76 and 74 years old. We could see one or both of them retire, replaced by a Republican. 48, 52-year-old conservative. And if someone should die, we hope not, then it may remain a six-three court or it could even become a seven to two Supreme Court. So, I think Trump's second term is going to further cement the conservative majority, probably for quite a long time.

ACOSTA: All right. Elie Honig, thanks for breaking all of that down for us. We appreciate it.

HONIG: Thanks, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, President-Elect Trump says he will let Robert Kennedy Jr., quote, "go wild on health." We'll talk about what that means next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[10:40:00]

ACOSTA: Right now, you're looking at live pictures of the White House short time ago -- or I should say short time from now President Biden will address the nation from there after his party's stinging defeat to Donald Trump. Let's discuss with CNN Political Commentator and Democratic Strategist Maria Cardona and former spokesman for Republican Governor Doug Burgum's presidential campaign Lance Trover.

Maria, I'll start with you first. A lot of fingers being pointed at President Biden. Your thoughts.

MARIA CARDONA, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR AND DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: You know, there is going to be a lot of recriminations. There is going to be a lot of finger pointing. You know, we got to give ourselves time for that to happen, to process exactly everything that happened that night, that happened throughout the process.

But I think what you're going to see today is a very presidential magnanimous Joe Biden as we know he can be. It's one of his gifts. He's going to focus on the importance of democracy. He's going to focus on the importance of a peaceful transition. He's going to give huge kudos to the vice president who did the impossible in an impossible amount of time.

Obviously, it was not the result that many of us wanted. But he's very proud of how she ran this campaign. He's very proud of what the Democratic Party represented. And I think what you're also going to see is that by doing all of that, by having called Trump, by the vice president having called Trump, there's already a huge contrast between what they represent and what Trump represents in terms of the fact that he was not able to do that four years ago.

ACOSTA: Yes. I mean, Lance, what about that? I mean, we've had three presidential elections since 2016, Hillary Clinton conceded, Kamala Harris conceded, Donald Trump did not concede. Is it time for the president-elect to concede the 2020 election?

LANCE TROVER, FORMER SPOKESMAN, BURGUM 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: The 2020 election is long gone. We -- he is now the president-elect again, and I think any discussion of that. I think the country showed on Tuesday night they are ready to move forward and they did it in a very overwhelming way. We have -- he has a mandate in this country. We have a United States Senate that's going to be 52, maybe 53 seats. And by and large, it looks like the Republicans are going to control Congress.

So, I think the country's ready to move forward from all this stuff of the past. They're clearly ready to move on from Joe Biden and looking forward to try to get inflation under control, get this border under control, all of the things Donald Trump ran on, I think that's what this country's looking for right now.

[10:45:00]

ACOSTA: Do Republicans have more faith now in elections in this country? I mean, there was all this talk of voter fraud before Tuesday. I'm not hearing any of that talk now. Is that --

TROVER: I always -- I've always had faith in election.

ACOSTA: Will Republicans give that up?

TROVER: Personally, I've always had faith in elections. And look, I think -- again, I think this country is ready to move forward. And I always say, we talked about this prior to -- it always got overshadowed, is you guys always had thousands of lawyers on staff and zillions of dollars of spend about in terms of like protecting the vote and protecting access to vote. But again, I think the country spoke very clearly on Tuesday night, they're ready to move forward and head us into a new direction.

ACOSTA: And, Maria, attention is turning now to who would serve in Trump's second administration. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon recently sprung from prison as floating Republican Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene for Homeland Security Secretary. Let's listen to that. Do we have that sound?

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: Is there any truth to the rumor that you're going to take over as DHS?

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): I don't know what's going to happen, Steve. We're just thrilled to have President Trump back in the White House because everyone knows what that means. We're going to dismantle the deep state. We're going to end the weaponized government. We're going to pardon the J6ers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: You also have a potential candidate for attorney general, Republican Lawyer Mike Davis, tweeting that he wants to -- put this up on screen, drag Democrats, quote, "dead political bodies through the streets, burn them and throw them off the wall, legally, politically, and financially, of course," he says. Maria, what are you -- what thoughts go through your mind when you see this kind of rhetoric being thrown around?

CARDONA: What a stand-up guy, you know. I hope his mom is proud. And this is exactly the challenge. You know, I will repeat what Vice President Harris said in her speech, she and all of us concede the election because we understand what a true democracy is all about. Hopefully, Trump has learned that lesson, but I don't know. And hopefully, Republicans will now shut the F up about voter fraud.

But this actually is very concerning because this is exactly what Democrats underscored was going to be the danger of another Trump presidency. You're right, Lance. He has a huge opportunity here to show that he can be above all of this BS and show Americans that he can defend our democracy, that he can be the president for everyone. We're going to be watching.

I'm not convinced. I hope he proves me wrong. Because the first thing that his press secretary tweeted was that on day one, he is going to implement mass deportation. Mass deportation means a huge bungling of the economy, it means families being separated, it means tragedy in communities across the country. So, if that's what we're looking forward to, Democrats are going to be there every step of the way to defend the country.

TROVER: I think, though, that is the central question for Democrats, though, after Tuesday night. And that would be my question is, are Democrats going to continue to be just the party of non-Trump, the never Trump party? Because that did not seem to work out too well for them Tuesday night. And I'm not saying to not -- to be there to hold people accountable, but I think for some --

ACOSTA: But what do you make of this when we see Mike Davis --

CARDONA: Right.

ACOSTA: We can put this back on screen.

TROVER: 100 percent. But that's not --

ACOSTA: I do want to put this tweet back up on screen. He's been talked about as an attorney general. If we have it. It's the Mike Davis tweet. We just put it up on screen. Put it up again. That would be lovely. We can show it to our viewers one more time. Well, I'll read it to you. That he wants to drag Democrats, quote, "dead political bodies through the streets, burn them, and throw them off the wall."

TROVER: Yes, completely unacceptable language. You should --

ACOSTA: Should that be the attorney general of the United States?

TROVER: Absolutely not. You how I feel about this. Completely unacceptable language. And I -- and look, we -- and that is not the type -- I would say that is not the type of language you are hearing out of the president-elect's team right now.

But that's what I'm also saying. The country spoke very fervently on Tuesday night about where they go and I think --

ACOSTA: Donald Trump said, I will be your retribution. He said that out on the campaign.

TROVER: Donald Trump also said he was going to be a president for all Americans. He made it very clear on Tuesday. But that's my question for Democrats, though, is are they just going to continue to be the party of anti-Trump? Because that didn't turn out so well on Tuesday night.

CARDONA: But see -- but I'm sorry, Lance. Now, that Donald Trump has won, it's on you guys. And I just said, let's give him a chance, right? I hope that he is able to be the president for everyone. So, we are going to see what happens.

It's on you guys now. The ball is in your court. It's not the, oh, let's see what Democrats do. No.

TROVER: No, I'm saying --

CARDONA: Let's see what Donald Trump and Republicans do. And it depends on what you do. It depends on what choice you make, not you, Donald Trump and the Republicans around him, who he chooses for his cabinet makes -- is going to be -- it's going to make all the difference in the world.

TROVER: No question. And I -- and look, I think they've been very clear about where they're heading on this.

CARDONA: Yes.

TROVER: Yes. Like I don't know about this Mike Davis thing, you know, I don't like that type of language. We talked about it a million times on the show. But that's not the language you're hearing out of the president-elect's team, and I don't think you're going to hear that.

CARDONA: And which is why I think it's important to underscore --

[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: We did hear that kind of language from the president-elect. In the final days of this campaign, he was talking about guns trained on Liz Cheney's face.

TROVER: Yes, sure.

ACOSTA: He talked about shooting through the media and so on. So, I mean, to say that, well, it's not coming out of the Trump team. I -- we've seen this movie before. I covered Donald Trump when he was president. The buck stops with him.

TROVER: Yes, and I would go back to the voters made it very clear Tuesday night where they want this country to go. CARDONA: That's right. But so now the vice president was right in saying we concede the election. He won.

TROVER: Sure. Yes, absolutely.

CARDONA: But we're not going to concede the fight if this is the type of person that he's going to put in his cabinet.

ACOSTA: All right. Guys, thanks very much. Appreciate it.

CARDONA: Thanks, Jim.

TROVER: Thanks.

ACOSTA: We're going to keep this conversation going. And just moments from now, President Biden will address the nation from the Rose Garden. We'll bring that to you live when it happens.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: Allies of President-Elect Trump are now jockeying for key positions in his second administration. Among them, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. who's promoted conspiracy theories and -- about vaccines. Kennedy was pressed on his vaccine stance and his potential role in Trump's next administration. Here's what he said.

[10:55:00]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: If vaccines are working for somebody, I'm not going to take them away. People ought to have a choice and that choice ought to be informed by the best information. So, I'm going to make sure scientific safety studies and efficacies are out there and people can make individual assessments.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would you eliminate any of the agencies?

KENNEDY JR.: I'm -- I -- to eliminate the agencies, as long as it requires congressional approval, I wouldn't be doing that. I can get the corruption out of the agencies is what I've been doing for 40 years. I think Florida is on the way out because of that court decision. I think the faster that it goes out the better. I'm not going to compel anybody to take it out, but I'm going to advise the water districts about their legal liability, their legal obligation to their service zones and to their constituents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: CNN Medical Correspondent Meg Tirrell joins us now. Meg, what are the facts about how the U.S. makes sure that our vaccines are safe and what might be the impact of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. being a health czar in this country?

MEG TIRRELL, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, Jim. I mean, we saw all of this in public view during COVID. And of course, that process, Operation Warp Speed, was a tremendously sped up version of the vaccine process. And that -- speeding that up and getting a vaccine to people in the midst of this pandemic was one of the key huge triumphs of the previous Trump administration.

Typically, this is a process that takes place over years. So, animal studies are done before a prospective vaccine could even get into human clinical trials. Those take thousands of patients and lots of years to complete. Once you get through phase three, the company submit those data to the FDA for review. And often that goes to an outside advisory group where we see these all-day public hearings where the data are all posted online, hundreds of pages, both from the manufacturers and from the FDA, which reviews the data, posts its own review. And you can see often the regulators might disagree with how the drug companies have presented some of the information or interpreted it.

They make a recommendation. If the FDA then approves the vaccine, it then goes to an outside panel of advisers to the CDC. We've seen this as well. These are public hearings. Also, those slides and data are posted online. Everybody can follow along. They make a recommendation for a vaccine to be added to a schedule. Who should get it? How frequently?

The CDC director then can decide whether to accept that recommendation. And even then, vaccines are continuously monitored in the real world for how safe and effective they are, both by mechanisms through the CDC and the FDA.

So, Jim, what I'm hearing from people in the public health world isn't necessarily that they're worried RFK Jr. is going to come in and uncover some data that are problematic or dismantle entire agencies. Really what they're worried about is that he'll continue to sort of try to chip away at confidence in vaccines, and we are already starting to see declining rates of vaccination.

For example, the MMR vaccine, that's the measles mumps rubella vaccine. Vaccination rates among kindergartners have been declining since before the pandemic. Now, they're at about 92.7 percent nationally. CDC wants to maintain an above 95 percent to obtain herd immunity. That's when folks can protect people by getting vaccinated themselves.

We are starting to see more outbreaks of measles. And there's a concern, we're going to see measles come back more and things like polio. So, that's the real concern that there could be this kind of chipping away in vaccines, which over decades have been a pillar of public health.

ACOSTA: Yes. Megan, RFK Jr. is also talking about getting rid of fluoride in drinking water. What might be the impacts of that?

TIRRELL: Well, a lot more tooth decay, I think. You know, we've seen when a fluoride has been removed from certain municipalities drinking water systems, there has been an increase in tooth decay and problems in those communities. You know, of course, at higher levels, we have been seeing data that there could be some safety concerns. So, public health experts say this is an incredibly important contribution to public health, but obviously too much is not good.

ACOSTA: All right. Meg Tirrell, thank you very much. Thanks to everybody for joining me this morning. I want to bring in my friend and colleague Pamela Brown to talk about all of this.

Pam, you and I covered the first Trump administration. Obviously, we're in for quite a ride here in the coming months. When Donald Trump's comes into office and his team comes into office, they are certainly making it very clear that they're going to be bringing some very big changes to this country.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: They certainly are. I've been talking to sources this morning who are helping with the Trump transition, Jim. And what I'm hearing from them is that there are some lessons learned from Trump's point of view from -- when he was in office the first time. One of them was he didn't like who he picked for attorney general. So, now a key metric in terms of that role is loyalty. That's something that they're really looking at for the attorney general role and other roles within a second Trump administration.

So, of course, we're going to be tracking this closely. And it's going to look different from what we saw the first time around, Jim. I know some people might think, well, he's been in office before. We kind of know what to expect, but this will be different undoubtedly. And I know we're going to be covering it every step of the way.

ACOSTA: Oh, yes. I know. I talked to a Trump adviser recently about all this.

[11:00:00]