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Inside Trump's Master Plan to Radically Reform Government; FBI Investigating Racist Text Messages; Trump Makes Gains Among Women Voters. Aired 10-10:30a ET

Aired November 08, 2024 - 10:00   ET

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

[10:00:00]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: Donald Trump's radical, ultra nationalist agenda beginning to take shape this morning. Mass deportations, tariffs, tax cuts for the wealthy, and a new missile defense shield with the help of former NFL player Herschel Walker. We'll have the details in a moment.

Plus, racist texts sent nationwide telling black people have been selected to pick cotton and that, quote, executive slave catchers will pick them up. We will talk to someone who received some of those messages.

And later, a new district attorney will soon review the Menendez Brothers murder case. Could this jeopardize their resentencing? The brand new wide ranging interview with the D.A. is straight ahead.

Good morning. You were live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Jim Acosta in Washington.

I want to begin the hour with Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania to talk about the new Trump agenda. Congressman, thank you very much for joining us.

We're starting to learn more about Trump's radical agenda. I was just talking about it a few moments ago. Let's go through some of the most repeated promises out on the campaign trail. We're going to show this to our viewers, mass deportations of 11 million undocumented immigrants, unprecedented tariffs on foreign goods from all countries, but especially China, trillions in cuts in government spending, he says, with the help of Elon Musk, a reversing regulations aimed at addressing climate change, building a new missile defense shield with help from former NFL player Herschel Walker, and the list goes on and on.

Congressman what do you make of this?

REP. BRENDAN BOYLE (D-PA): I mean, it was very hard to not actually laugh at that last comment about a missile, missile shield defense by Herschel Walker. It's baddiness, it's craziness, and I feel like I've seen this movie before and often the sequel is no better than the original.

But one thing I will say is that when I served the first time in a Trump -- first time as a House Democrat with Trump as president, even in the minority, House Democrats were able to resist not all, unfortunately, but a lot of the Trump agenda will need help from a few self proclaimed moderates, particularly in the Senate. We were able to save Obamacare that way. But we also should be clear-eyed in a number of areas where Donald Trump can act unilaterally, such as on tariffs and to a certain extent, foreign policy. He will be able to inflict real damage on the United States as well as the world.

ACOSTA: Yes. Congressman, I did want to ask you what is the plan for Democrats if the GOP remains in control of the House. It looks like it's heading in that direction. We don't know how it's going to shake out because all the votes have not been counted. But what will Democrats do to try to stop some of this agenda?

BOYLE: Yes. Just be clear. I mean, there is still a path for a House Democratic majority. There's so many races still yet to be called, especially in California. But worst case scenario, Democrats will be in the minority barely approximately where we are now just a few seats away from a majority.

I would point out that over the last two years, House Republicans have not been able to pass anything of consequence without Democratic votes. That gives Democrats, even though we're in the minority, it gives us leverage over what passes. And I think that will still be the case, whether it's a debt ceiling, which will be back in front of us in just two months, whether it's the budget, whether it's the must- pass annual defense bill. There are ways in which in the minority Democrats can exercise our power to make sure that we're able to impact the agenda.

ACOSTA: But if the House does fall into Republican hands once again, and the Senate having a -- I mean, not a strong majority, but a majority, is Obamacare in trouble, do you think?

BOYLE: Oh, there's no question about it. I said that during the campaign. It wasn't just something that is said during a campaign. I was quite sincere about it. Republicans have been trying for 14 years to repeal Obamacare. They came with -- they passed that bill to repeal it in the House of Representatives in 2017 and then it failed by just one thumbs down from John McCain, as well as no votes from a couple of other Senate Republicans.

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Now that Republicans were able to get to 53 votes in the Senate, as opposed to a majority of 51 or 52, that does deeply concern me because that will make it easier for them

to pass certain things that, from my perspective, are very destructive for the American people.

ACOSTA: And, Congressman, there's new reporting from The Washington Post that the Pentagon is anticipating a major upheaval with Trump's return to the White House. There are big concerns about what it means for the nonpartisan military. Obviously, Trump and his acolytes during the campaign talked about using the military against the political opposition of Donald Trump in this country. Should the Pentagon be concerned?

BOYLE: I think all of us should be concerned with Donald Trump returning to the White House. You know, we have the greatest fighting force, the greatest military in the history of the world. It is a strictly nonpartisan military that is under civilian command. The idea that Donald Trump is attempting to change that should deeply worry all Americans.

So, even though the election is over, the American people still have voices. The American people still have the capability for great activism. I think that what we need is a great citizen activist awakening in this country to make sure that the worst doesn't happen, whether it's to the military or the civilian service or other parts of our government.

ACOSTA: And quickly, just finally, Congressman, in a speech yesterday, Russia's Vladimir Putin declared that a new world order I mean is taking shape and the western-dominated post-Cold War era is coming to an end. He's saying this just days after Trump's victory. Coincidence?

BOYLE: No, there's no coincidence. I mean, Trump's election on Tuesday was a great day for Vladimir Putin, it was a great day for Viktor Orban, and it was a great day for other dictators and autocrats around the world.

We had a great expansion of democracy from the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 for the next 20 years. But since then, unfortunately, we've seen a what I call the democracy recession. And we now have a president, a president-elect about to be president again, who sadly fashions himself in that same mold as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban.

But I would remind folks that in our system, Congress is a co-equal branch of government. Indeed, we're the first article of the Constitution. Congress needs to assert itself during the Trump presidency in all realms, but especially when it comes to foreign policy.

ACOSTA: Congressman Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, thank you very much for your time.

BOYLE: Thank you, Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Right now, the FBI is investigating a string of racist messages sent to black Americans across the U.S. This is one of the disturbing text, and I'm sorry we have to put this up on screens. It says it reads, you have been selected to pick cotton at the nearest plantation. Again, for the folks listening on the radio, I am reading quotes from this text, and references executive slave catchers.

Children and college students got messages like this. One mother in Houston said her daughter, who was in high school, received one as well. Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) LAURA BASS-BROWN, DAUGHTER RECEIVED RACIST TEXT MESSAGE: She said it's a message that she her and some of her friends received. And so I'm like, which friends? And so she said, all of my black friends. To have somebody threatened their lives or threaten their livelihood or threaten their family's livelihood, it becomes uncomfortable. This should not be sent to any student, black, brown, blue, purple, yellow, whatever.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: A Canadian phone services company tells CNN that some of the racist messages were sent by accounts on their messaging app. The company says it has disabled those accounts. And to be clear, CNN does not have a clear answer of who sent these. That is still under investigation.

But Talaya Jones joins us now. She received this text we showed earlier. Talaya, I mean, as we were just explaining a few moments ago, people in states across the eastern half of the United States, it appears, received these text messages. You got one as well, and some out west, you can see it there on screen. What was your reaction when you got this message on your phone?

TALAYA JONES, RECEIVED RACIST TEXT MESSAGE: My first reaction was kind of like shocked because, you know, when you see something, you're like, let me look again to make sure like I'm really seeing what I'm seeing, the kind of feeling I had. And then I immediately sent it to my mom and my sister and our group and we were all just like, what is going on in the world? There's no way that it's 2024 and things like this are happening again. And it's just insane, like the level of disrespect that people have for other humans is just crazy.

ACOSTA: And I'm just wondering, Talaya, I mean, what did it feel like?

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I had to think that it hurt. I mean, I have to think that it hurt when you got that message. What was going through your mind? How did it feel?

JONES: So, first it was shock and then I think it was more anger then like sadness, because it's just like, who do you think you are to send these out? It was really -- it became sadness when I realized that young people were getting it, like elementary schoolers and middle schoolers who a lot of them are oblivious to what's going on. It's like they're so innocent. And it's like, why would you want to intentionally hurt somebody that you don't even know? So it was definitely like shock, anger and sadness, all in one.

ACOSTA: Yes. What do you think about the timing of all this? The president CEO of the NAACP released a statement saying in part, the unfortunate reality of electing a president who historically has embraced and at times encouraged hate is unfolding before our eyes. I mean, we had an election this week. What do you think of the timing of this? JONES: It was definitely strategically planned. I received the text at like 2:00 P.M. on Wednesday. So, not even a full 24 hours after we got the election results. So I feel like this was something that was definitely premeditated. They felt like they were going -- the Republicans were going to win. Donald Trump was going to be elected into office again, so they were just ready to go. And it just really shows like we thought we came far from where we were hundreds of years ago. But, honestly, we have not at all, clearly.

ACOSTA: And do you know anybody else who got this message?

JONES: Not personally. When I got on social media later that day, I saw that a lot of different people had gotten them, but nobody that I knew personally. But I did see that everybody who received the text was a person of color, for sure.

ACOSTA: And what do you hope people take away from this? I mean, to me, I'm incredibly sad hearing about it. I know you were angry, but I'm just incredibly sad hearing about this. But what do you, what do you want people to think about this weekend after getting this kind of a text?

JONES: For the people that voted the way that they voted, I want them to recognize this is the person that you voted for. This is the type of people that back him. And it's insane, because at the end of the day, we're all humans and I hope people take that. It's like we all bleed the same blood, like there's nothing different between me and you, between a black person, a white person, a Spanish person. It doesn't matter. And I just feel like people need to really take into account that at the end of the day, we're all humans and what you do directly affects other people. And there will be consequences to those actions.

ACOSTA: You're absolutely right about that. That is a great message. It means a lot to me that you said it and you shared this story with us. Apparently, we're just hearing now in the last couple of minutes delay that it's now up to 21 states, 21 states where people received these text messages. It's just awful.

JONES: It's crazy because you would think that -- I don't know. I would think that immediately people would find out where it's coming from and shut it down. So, the fact that it's still happening today, which is Friday, 48 hours later, is just crazy.

ACOSTA: Yes. Well, it says everything about the person who sent this text, not the people who received it.

Talaya Jones, thank you very much for talking to us. We appreciate it.

JONES: Thank you.

ACOSTA: All right. Coming up, brazen attacks, Israeli soccer fans becoming the target of hate and violence.

And next, women showed up for president-elect Donald Trump, but while still voting for reproductive rights, the disconnect that hurt Vice President Harris in the end. We'll talk about that next.

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ACOSTA: Another demographic gain for Donald Trump during this election cycle was among women. Exit polls show that 45 percent of women voters cast their ballots for the president-elect. That's up from 2016 and 2020. With the overturning of Roe versus Wade just two years ago, Democrats were optimistic that women would show up at the polls for Vice President Kamala Harris. So, how much of a role did gender play in Trump's victory?

Let's discuss with our panel, Political Commentator S.C. Cupp, Democratic Strategist Julie Roginsky and Associate Professor of Political Science at Rutgers Camden Kelly Dittmar. Ladies, thank you so much for joining us.

Julie, let's just jump right into it here. Are you surprised that Trump gained women voters this time around? I mean, we were talking about this before the election. It wasn't supposed to play out like this, but it did.

JULIE ROGINSKY, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: In retrospect, of course, there are signs, but I am very surprised for all the reasons that we talked about before the election. Look, ultimately, we have to -- the Democratic Party needs to reckon with the fact that we don't know how to speak to voters very often, and those voters include women. And bashing women over the head on abortion did not seem to work, especially in states where abortion was on the ballot, and they could vote to make it legal that way. We need to talk to women and men and meet voters where they're at and not lecture to them. I've said this before and I'm doubling down on that today.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, S.E., exit polls show that more than half of white women voters chose Trump in the past three elections. But that went down. That number went down from 2020 to 2024. Why do you think that is? I mean, we sort of had a similar conversation about this yesterday with a Latino panel, and I asked a Republican who was a Trump supporter, you know, are you voting against your own self-interest here? I suppose I should ask the same question of all of you? I mean, did women vote against their own self interest in this election?

S.E. CUPP, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, women as well as every demographic group do not like being told that they're voting against what they believe is their own self-interest because they are voting the way they want to vote. So, that's not a great question just generally. And --

ACOSTA: No, I know. I mean, I want to have real talk and I don't -- you know, like you tell me.

CUPP: I'm not egging (ph) on you. I'm just saying --

ACOSTA: No, no, it's okay. CUPP: I'm saying they're voting their self-interest. They're voting the way they want to vote. And women did. I didn't vote for Donald Trump.

But I covered this election differently than I have in past cycles.

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I did it through the swing states, talking to voters every day, just in the swing states. And I got to tell you, the three issues they all mentioned were economy, crime and immigration. And in particular for women, crime was a very big issue and they don't like being told crime is down, you're safe, when we, as women who have navigated this world for years, as women, we know when we feel safe and when we don't. And we do not feel safe in our big cities and our towns.

And the Democrats barking FBI statistics at us, just like they would bark GDP statistics to show us how great the economy was when we don't feel like it's good, this was not the right messaging. That's not how women felt. And as important as reproductive rights are for many women, it was not a leading factor in the way that the economy, crime and immigration were. And Democrats need to realize those are women's issues, too.

ACOSTA: Yes. Kelly, in a Forbes article, you write that gender is a persistent force in presidential elections, but not the defining issue. Can you explain what you mean by that? And what are your thoughts on all of this? I mean, I'm the guy here. You know, to me, you know, one of the questions that I have --

CUPP: You're doing your best, Jim.

ACOSTA: No. But, yes, and maybe that's not good enough. But the question that I have, and I'm going to say it, is, are there some women out there who don't want to have a woman president? And please don't hit me over the head for asking that question, but, Kelly, I'm going to ask it.

KELLY DITTMAR, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY-CAMDEN: Yes. So, I want to say two things first regarding that, which is, first of all, the majority of women voted for Kamala Harris and women and men, both, right, declined their support for the Democratic candidates. So, I worry about a narrative that's about kind of women lost this election for Harris in some way, right?

ACOSTA: 100 percent.

DITTMAR: Ultimately, men supported Donald Trump and the both men and women and across the board, if you look across demographic groups, saw decline in support. Harris underperformed across the board with Democrats, and broadly speaking, for a lot of the reasons.

So, thinking about Is it about the gender of the candidate? No, right? Part of the reason we expected more women to vote for Harris, I think, was because people thought, oh, well, still be excited that there's a woman. We know in every election that gender identity of the candidate is not pushing the vote.

What's more surprising, I think, in this election when something we really have to tap into is why is it not disqualifying to have a candidate who plays on misogyny and racism, tapped into it as a primary point of all of his campaigns, and voters, men and women alike, are still willing to vote for him. To me, that's the gender story that we have to pay attention to.

ACOSTA: Yes. Julie, go ahead.

ROGINSKY: Yes. You know, I've been thinking a lot about this. And I think, for Donald Trump, the authenticity of who he is, the misogyny, is a feature and not a bug. It is actually what attracts voters to him. Voters like authentic candidates, and they think that he's authentic. They don't think he's a politician. The locker room talk of 2016, that helped him, because people thought, this is how people speak in the privacy of their house or in the locker room. This guy is actually being authentic to who he is. He's not a typical politician.

It is much harder, much harder, almost impossible for women to come across as authentic, because she could never get away with 1 millionth of what Donald Trump said. No woman candidate can, right? And every time a woman just tries to be herself --

ACOSTA: Well, she was walking a tightrope this entire campaign and Donald Trump could say anything that he wanted. I mean, that, to me, is just an unfair double standard and I'm not just -- I'm not saying that because I'm the guy here. I mean, it just is.

ROGINSKY: But it's not just -- but, Jim, it's not, it's not just Trump. Look, Biden before Biden declined a little bit. What voters loved about Biden was that he just seemed incredibly authentic. That's who Joe Biden seemed to people when he was a senator. I knew him for 30 years when he was a senator. That's who he was. It is impossible, whether it's Hillary Clinton or Kamala Harris or the next woman who runs, it is impossible for her to be perceived as being authentic because people don't even begin to grasp what women are like in private and what they have to do in public to get to the point where they got. That's the difficulty for female candidates across the board.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, S.E., I think you put your finger on something and that is, you know, yes, crime is down, but women care about crime. And, you know, we're having this conversation with the Latino panel yesterday and, you know, the Latino panel was talking about how, you know, people voted on the economy and you could tell them that the economy is doing well. But if they are part of the sandwich generation and they're putting kids through college while caring for older parents who are in their senior years, like I am, you are feeling squeezed right now. And, you know, those headwinds are enormous for Democrats.

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CUPP: Yes. And what I would say over the past few months to folks is when people tell you they're worried about the economy, they mean their personal economy. They're not thinking about the GDP or, you know, numbers like that. And telling people, well, you're not feeling the effects of the good economy yet because of lagging indicators. Lagging indicators do not console anyone who can't afford groceries and gas or to buy a car or a home.

So, the talk around the economy really missed the mark. Of course, you should never tell voters that they're wrong about the way that they feel. And I think Democrats did a lot of that. They did that on the border. They said there wasn't a migrant crisis. They did that on crime. They said crime's down. Actually, the FBI revised their crime numbers to show violent crime is up. No one bothered to correct that record. There was a lot of talking over voters and treating voters like they had separate identity issues unique to their racial or ethnic or gender identities when, really, they were telling you in very plain words what they were worried about. And I feel like Democrats just didn't believe them.

ACOSTA: And I wonder if Democrats just need to get better at populism. I mean, Bill Clinton was famous for saying, I feel your pain. And I just -- you know, I didn't really hear that. I mean, you know, feel free to send me emails and text and tell me that I'm wrong, but I just didn't hear that from the Democratic side, and I just think that was a big mistake.

And, I mean, Kelly, I mean, what do you make of that? I mean, I suppose any voter, you could take any demographic, and say those folks voted against their self-interest. But if they're just feeling a certain way, they're going to vote that way.

DITTMAR: Yes, no, and I agree with S.E. that it's really dangerous particularly to tell any voters that they're voting against their self-interest. And this had come up a lot in 2016 when folks were shocked that white women would vote for Donald Trump. Well, we knew that Donald Trump was putting forth policies and a perspective of the world that was beneficial to white people. And so it's not surprising that it would be in the self-interest for white women to vote for him.

And so when we think about that as a specific example, vis-a-vis women, I also think when it comes to, of course, the economy and folks saying, for example, in the exit polls, they don't like the direction of this country, right, it is bigger than any one issue. It's certainly bigger than just abortion. I think that's an important point. And so we do have to look at the diversity among voters, including among women.

ACOSTA: And I do have to go. But, I mean, the one thing, though, that I don't know if folks thought about enough is the fact that, I mean, Donald Trump is going to have an opportunity to put more justices on the Supreme Court. I mean, this anti-abortion MAGA majority on the Supreme Court is going to be, you know, set into stone here over the next couple of years, it seems, Julie.

And just a quick final word from you, I just wonder if, you know, yes, they're, they're economic headwinds and people were thinking about that, S.E. is absolutely right about, you know, feelings of safety and security and so on, but I just wonder if that was just missed by a lot of voters.

ROGINSKY: You know, this is going to sound worse than I intended to be. You and I have the luxury to sit here and think about what's going to happen in a few years on the Supreme Court and what Donald Trump is going to do because we make a fairly decent living, right? There are people out there who don't have time to sit and think about what's going to happen tomorrow or the next day because, as you pointed out, they have to keep food on the table today. And I think Democrats need to realize that and, as S.E. said, stop preaching and start listening to those people. That's how we win back elections.

Our policies are better for those workers and for those women. We need to make it clear to them that we hear what they're saying before we start lecturing to them about what's going to happen a year or two from now with Donald Trump.

ACOSTA: Yes, very well said. All of you, thank you so much, great conversation. I wish we had more time. I wish, wish, wish. We'll do it again soon. Thanks so much. I really appreciate all of you.

Coming up, the one member of the Biden administration refusing to leave when Donald Trump returns to the White House, find out who that is, next.

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