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Trump Team Quickly Filling White House Roles; DOJ Charges Suspect In Iranian Plot To Kill Donald Trump; Trump Agrees To Meet Biden In The Oval Office; U.N. Says Women And Children Make Up Most Of Deaths In Gaza; Nancy Pelosi Blames Biden For Late Dropout; Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-MI) Discusses What Went Wrong For Democrats; Racist Texts Tell Blacks To Report To "Nearest Plantation"; Trump Picks First Woman To Be White House Chief Of Staff. Aired 4-5p ET

Aired November 09, 2024 - 16:00   ET

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

[16:00:00]

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN HOST: Workers are trying to lure the other 42 monkeys back with food and nonlethal traps. Yemassee Police say the primates have been seen playing, they're exploring. They're having a good time there in the woods near the facility's perimeter. In the meantime, police are asking nearby residents to keep their doors and windows locked to prevent monkeys from entering their homes.

All right. Thank you so much for joining me today. I'm Fredricka Whitfield. The CNN NEWSROOM continues with Jessica Dean right now.

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean in New York.

It has been four days since Donald Trump's decisive victory to retake the White House and his transition now in full swing. The president- elect has already named his White House chief of staff Susie Wiles credited as the architect of his victory. President Biden is moving to assure a peaceful transfer of power inviting Trump to the White House on Wednesday. Trump has agreed that similar back in 2016 when he accepted President Obama's invitation to visit the White House after Trump won that election.

Watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: My number one priority in the coming two months is to try to facilitate a transition that ensures our president-elect is successful.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Mr. President, it was a great honor being with you, and I look forward to being with you many, many more times in the future. Thank you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: For more on how the Trump White House is taking shape, we go now to CNN's Alayna Treene who's joining us from West Palm Beach. That's near Mar-a-Lago.

And Alayna, what do we know about President-elect Trump's top contenders for key roles? I know he's down there at Mar-a-Lago filling that out, filling out his -- who's going to be working for him as he goes.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. I mean, there is a lot of activity, Jessica, going on on that island behind me. I'm told that Donald Trump has really been hold up at Mar-a-Lago very closely going through all of the candidates that he wants to fill for these key roles. I'd also note that it's pretty interesting that we really haven't seen or heard much from Donald Trump ever since he won the election.

We have not seen him publicly. He hasn't talked to press or anything like that. He hasn't done interviews. And he also has very rarely been on Truth Social. So that's just one interesting thing. I'm told it's because he is really digging in and taking seriously this new job of trying to figure out who is going to serve in his Cabinet as well as top White House roles.

Now I want to walk through what some of those most important roles are at least in the mind of Donald Trump. Number one, the most important job that he feels in his mind that he is going to fill is the role of attorney general. I would remind you that after Donald Trump had left the White House in January of 2021, he had said that one of his biggest regrets while in office was who he had selected as his attorney general.

He was mainly referring to his attorneys general Jeff Sessions and Bill Barr, but that is very much at the top of his mind and one of the top priorities for him at this current moment. Now some people who are on that list. We recently just reported that Eric Schmitt, that senator from Missouri, he is one of the contenders for this role. He was previously the attorney general of Missouri. He is very close with Donald Trump.

He helped him prepare for both of the debates, the first against Biden, the latter against Kamala Harris. He was with Donald Trump on Tuesday night to celebrate his election victory. So he is definitely one person to keep in mind. The other people, keeping with the Missouri theme, the current attorney general of Missouri, Andrew Bailey, is on that list as is John Ratcliffe, his former director of National Intelligence. Mark Paoletta, he's someone who worked as an attorney in the previous White House.

There are other names on there but I'll just say this is going to be a very key role. And another thing I would just remind you as well about attorney general, what Donald Trump has said is that he does not want the Justice Department to operate as independently as it has for the last several years. It is tradition that the Justice Department tries to operate on its own independent of what the White House and the rest of the executive branch is doing.

Donald Trump wants to change that. He also wants whoever his attorney general is to help him carry out his legal goals. Part of that is potentially prosecuting his political opponents, and I'm told whoever he chooses for that role is really going to be someone that Donald Trump trusts explicitly and believes is very loyal to him.

DEAN: And Alayna, we know now that Trump will be meeting with President Biden in the Oval Office next week. What more have you heard about the dynamics of that, Trump's thinking around that as we head into the next week?

TREENE: I mean, Jessica, I know you and I have been covering this story for so long. It is going to be fascinating to see these two men in the same room speaking for the first time in a very, very long time especially after we know the level of attacks and the type of attacks that they have lobbed at each other for the past year now.

[16:05:04]

But, look, this is really a standard meeting. This is tradition. As you had noted at the top of the show, Donald Trump had met with the former President Obama right after the 2016 election. Notable that Donald Trump did not extend an invitation to Joe Biden after losing the 2020 election to meet with him.

But really I'm told that this is an expected thing and really it was organized. We have some new reporting on this. Organized by Donald Trump's new chief of staff Susie Wiles as well as Biden's chief of staff Jess Zients. I'm told they have been talking through the details over the phone for the past few days. And so we'll see how it all shapes up this week -- Jessica.

DEAN: All right. Alayna Treene, in West Palm Beach for us, thank you for that reporting.

And for more on this, we're joined now by CNN senior political commentator and former Trump campaign adviser David Urban.

Hi, David. Thanks for coming on.

DAVID URBAN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Jessica, thanks for having me.

DEAN: I want to start first I think so many people out there are so curious about how this Trump administration is actually going to shape up. What is actually going to be the priority, how he's thinking about this, how the people around him are thing about this. So I think my first question to you is just, what is different about Trump's strategy this time versus 2016 at this particular moment?

URBAN: Well, Jessica, I think, you know, they have the experience of being there once before, right, and learning from the mistakes that were made in the first instance. You have a different -- completely different personality at the helm as chief of staff this go around. I don't expect there will be infighting and backbiting and leaking like there was last time. It's a unified command so to speak. Everybody on this team is a very cohesive -- just there was during the campaign.

There was no leaking, no backbiting. I think it was run very professionally. This transition thus far has been run very professionally. They are moving forward with deliberate pace, doing incredible amount of meetings I know from talking to people who are involved, directly involved. Some people who are up for Cabinet positions. You know, their participation thus far. So I think that they've learned and there'll be a lot less bumps.

I think that it will be staffed much more quickly at the top positions at least. They'll in very talented people. There's no shortage as you saw there from Alayna's reporting on very quality people for the attorney general. And I do agree that's probably one of the preeminent roles. You got the chief of staff, that's number one. The attorney general is probably number two. White House counsel is three and then kind of so forth, secretary of Defense and Treasury and State are all going to fall into line pretty quickly.

But if you look at the names that are being bandied about, these are quality people. People are putting their hand up in America saying I want to help America get back on track. And so, you know, Democrats have all been wringing their hands and people are saying, who's going to want to serve in a Trump administration? Well, take a look at the list. It's incredibly quality people. I think Americans are going to be surprised.

I think Americans are going to benefit from it because the economy is going to turn around. You're going to have a secure border. Things are going to happen incredibly quickly. Day one there'll be, you know, 200, 300 executives orders out, you know, offered up by the president. Things are going to change dramatically on January 21st.

DEAN: And Trump as you noted has moved pretty quickly in selecting his chief of staff, Susie Wiles, who has been credited with helping him win this campaign. I thought it was interesting that she demanded reportedly, our reporting is, that the clown car can't come into the White House at will. Those were her words according to our reporting. And that Trump agreed with that.

What do you make of that?

URBAN: Yes, listen, so Susie, I worked on the 2016 campaign with Susie. She's singular in her kindness or courtesy or professionalism. But, you know, Susie Wiles -- she's like a hammer wrapped in a piece of velvet, right? She would crush you if she need be. So I would not want to get crossed by Susie. And if these people who are, you know, who are in a clown car, who wanted to cause distraction for the president or get him off message, I would not want to cross Susie's path.

And I'm sure she's putting a team together that will act as sort of a Pretorian guard to keep the, you know, the folks out this time. I mean, listen, this president, as you know, like to assimilate information differently, likes to get it from lots of different sources. And kind of the problem in the lasted administration was that there were lots of people walking into the Oval Office. The staff secretary job which you know well is the person who controls all the information flow, papers in and out, decisions in and out. Incredibly important job. We'll see who gets that position. But those are key to, you know, finding out and keeping the

information flow, what's going in what the president signs, what's going out and staffing it with the different agencies. Those are all super important and I take Susie at face value. To date, I think just look at how the campaign how it's run. I would tell you that nobody goes around Susie. Everyone goes through Susie on this campaign to get to the president.

No -- the amount of phone calls directly to Donald Trump's cell phone is diminished greatly. If you talk to Susie or Chris or somebody else inside the inner circle there, and you get on the president's call list.

[16:10:04]

And I think that's how it'll proceed. It'll be much more orderly in this second administration.

DEAN: Yes, it sounds like what you're describing is more -- a more professionalism of it and her acknowledgement in those words that yes, there are people that surround this president to be, this president- elect, former president, that don't need to be in there talking to him in the Oval Office.

URBAN: Yes. Well, listen, everybody has ideas, right? Some ideas are better than others. And, you know, the job of the chief of staff and the staff secretary and others to control information flow in and out of the White House. You have to know these policies have been to be vetted and staff through different agencies to see what the impact is going to be. IRS, OMB, there's lots of different people that are involved.

You can't just say, I want to do this and then expect it to happen. They are incredible giant -- you know, the government is too big obviously. It's part of the reason that this administration wants to shrink it, but to effectuate change in any presidency, in the federal government is incredibly complicated. And so these folks that are going in there are going to have to go in there not with just scalpers. You're going to have to under meat cleavers to begin with.

You remember, Jessica, the first -- in the beginning days of the 2016 campaign, when they had the -- for every regulation we'd promulgate we're going to cut six. And then at one point in time they had a pile of regulations about four feet tall in a short period of time that they got rid of, right? And reducing the regulatory burden on American business, reducing taxes, these are things that are going to help stream line the economy, bring back the economy, reduce inflation, make prices drop, make things for affordable for individuals at home. All good things.

DEAN: I do want to ask you about President Trump's words. He talked a lot on the campaign -- his words -- about, you know, retaliating against those who had -- he considered had been good to him or had been unfair to him. I'm curious if you've spoken with him and how seriously you think Americans should be taking this sort of rhetoric? Because I'm going to be honest with you, David, like clearly the

majority of Americans support the president and voted for him. There are a number of Americans, too, that are deeply concerned about what that might look like if he does try to retaliate against his political enemies?

URBAN: Yes. Well, so, Jessica, I have not spoken with the president directly about that specific part. But I would anticipate that that's not going to not happen.

Listen, on the campaign trail in 2016, you'll remember the chants of lock her up, lock her up, and how many times that President Donald talked about locking Hillary Clinton up and she should be in jail for what she did on the server. I mean, that was kind of standard fare at every Trump rally. And I'd just ask your viewers to think about how many days that Hillary Clinton spend being prosecuted or persecuted by the Trump Department of Justice? Zero days. That's how many.

How many days did Donald Trump, how many days was he persecuted and prosecuted by the Biden administration? Probably more than he can count on one hand. Ans so I think this administration will not to do that, it will not weaponize the Department of Justice. I think they will clean house in lots of places, file lots of individuals and streamline the government. But I would not expect and I think the people in America can expect that that will not occur.

DEAN: All right, David Urban, as always, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

URBAN: Thank, Jessica. Thanks for having me.

DEAN: Still to come, Iran is denying any involvement in a plot to kill Donald Trump after the Justice Department announced federal charges against three people it says plotted to kill the now president-elect before the election. Plus, blaming Joe Biden for Kamala Harris's loss? Why House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is saying the president should have gotten out of the race sooner. And later, the FBI and the Department of Justice are investigating hateful racist text sent to black people all across the country.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:18:24]

DEAN: New tonight, Iran is denying involvement in a plot to kill Donald Trump. Iran's Foreign Ministry says it's, quote, "categorically dismissing" the Justice Department's allegations describing them as completely baseless. On Friday, the DOJ announced charges in a thwarted plot to kill Trump before the election.

CNN's Evan Perez has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

EVAN PEREZ, CNN SENIOR JUSTICE CORRESPONDENT: The Justice Department says that the latest Iranian plot to try to kill Donald Trump was part of a broader effort to carry out attacks on a prominent critic of the Iranian regime as well as against U.S. and Israeli citizens. The U.S. prosecutors unsealed in federal court in Manhattan a complaint against an alleged IRGC operative living in Tehran and two U.S. citizens who allegedly -- he allegedly recruited in at least one of these assassination plots.

The two Americans are in custody and have been ordered -- held pending trial. Now according to the court documents, Iranian government officials tasked Farhad Shakeri, 51 years old, to focus in recent weeks on surveilling and ultimately assassinating Trump. Now he couldn't come up with a plot in a short time frame before the election and the Iranians apparently believe Trump would lose and that they could target him later. Shakeri is still at large in Iran according to the Justice Department.

Now also on the Iranian target list was journalist and activist Masih Alinejad. She is a prominent critic of the Iranian regime who the FBI says that the Iranians have been trying to kil several other times. Prosecutors say Shakeri told the FBI in voluntary interviews about the various tasks that he was given by the IRGC. Now this includes plans for a mass shooting that targeted Israeli tourists in Sri Lanka.

[16:20:04]

And Shakeri also told the FBI that he was tasked with surveilling and assassinating two Jewish business people living in New York City.

Now the U.S. government has repeatedly raised concerns that Iran is trying to retaliate for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed IRGC General Qassem Soleimani. Now they say that he has plotted to kill Trump who ordered the strike as well as a number of Trump administration officials. More recently in this summer a Pakistan national was arrested and charged with seeking to hire assassins to target Trump as well as other U.S. political figures including some in the Biden administration.

Evan Perez, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Evan, thank you. The Israeli military is claiming it's dealt a, quote, "severe blow to Hamas" in recent weeks saying a thousand Hamas militants have been killed and a thousand more wounded during IDF operations in northern Gaza. Meantime, Gaza's Health Ministry says more than 43,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began last October.

CNN cannot independently verify those numbers, and we should note that Health Ministry does not distinguish between civilians and Hamas militants killed. A recent U.N. report estimates that women and children account for some 70 percent of deaths in Gaza.

Matthew Chance is joining us now from Jerusalem with more.

Matthew, what more are you learning? MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes. I mean,

absolutely aappalling numbers, though, aren't they? And the humanitarian toll inside Gaza Strip appears to be getting worse by the day.

Look, I mean, there's been the IDF chief of the general staff has been visiting Israeli troops near the Jabalya Refugee Camp in northern Gaza which has been one of the areas that has been the focus of military operations in the past month or so. He's saying to the troops that in the past three weeks there have been a thousand Hamas militants killed and another thousand captured, something he described as a severe blow to the Hamas organization.

As they say, Jabalya has been a focus of military activity for the past month because the Israeli military say that Hamas militants have been resurgent there so they've had to move back in, clear people away, and fight in very close quarters against Hamas they're trying to destroy, and of course part of the process as well is to try and free hostages that are being held there still -- more than 100 Israeli hostages still being held in Gaza.

Meanwhile, those U.N. reports, there's a couple of them as well from UNICEF, the U.S. children agency, saying in the past month 64 schools across the Gaza Strip have been struck. That's almost, well, two a day, just over two a day, and about 128 people have been killed including children inside those schools. The Israeli military of course haven't commented on the report but they say that Hamas frequently uses places like schools and civilians as human shields.

There's also been a much more broad general detailed report by the United Nations, looking at the casualties in the war over the first six months of the conflict and they've reached the conclusion that 70 percent of the casualties have been women and children, and they've criticized the Israeli military for that. There hasn't been a reaction yet by the Israeli military to that. But it just underlines again that humanitarian cost, just how intense the fighting is there in Gaza, and just what a massive impact it's having on the people of the Gaza Strip -- Jessica.

DEAN: Matthew Chance for us live from Jerusalem tonight. Thank you so much for that reporting.

Still to come, as Democrats try to explain how the presidential election went wrong for them, former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is blaming President Biden. We're going to have more details on that next.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[16:28:27]

DEAN: The blame game for Kamala Harris's defeat is well underway within the Democratic Party as many begin to point fingers at President Joe Biden. The latest criticism now coming from one of the party's most powerful leaders, former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, telling the "New York Times" Democrats may have had a better shot if the president had stepped aside sooner.

CNN's Arlette Saenz is joining us now with more on this.

Arlette, what more did the former House speaker say?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Jessica, these are pretty frank comments from former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, one of the top leaders within the Democratic Party, really saying that President Biden should have gotten out of this election much sooner but also that there should have been an open primary for Democrats once he did bow out of this race.

You'll remember that President Biden dropped out in July after that halting debate performance against Trump which had really set off alarm bells within the Democratic Party and then he very quickly moved and threw his endorsement behind Vice President Kamala Harris which prompted the party to coalesce around her. But Pelosi in this interview with the "New York Times" said, quote, "Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have other candidates in the race. The anticipation was that, that if the president were to step aside that there would be an open primary. And as I say, Kamala Harris may have I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward."

She added, "But we don't know that that didn't happen. We live with what happened because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier it would have been different."

Now these comments are also interesting because one of the things that Biden advisers often pointed to after he dropped out of the race was that they believed it was a good thing that he quickly moved to endorse Harris because it caused the party to go quickly coalesce around her.

Really avoiding any infighting in those just three or four weeks before the Democratic National Convention.

But the relationship between Biden and Pelosi has been a very interesting one. While she was not publicly calling for him to drop out after that debate performance, she did leave the door open. And in many ways, gave Democrats permission to openly question whether he should remain in the race.

So it remains unclear whether the two have spoken since this whole situation happened over the summer. But it is very interesting to hear from the former House speaker who is considered one of the key voices within the Democratic Party still.

DEAN: Yes, there's no doubt about that.

She also took issue with Senator Bernie Sanders for casting blame on the Democratic Party itself. What more did she say about that? SAENZ: Yes, she pushed back on some comments from her statement

earlier in the week from Senator Bernie Sanders, that Independent from Vermont, who had said that the Democratic Party focused too much on identity issues instead of talking about kitchen-table economic concerns that Americans are facing.

And Pelosi was very blunt in this interview saying, respectfully, that Bernie Sanders hasn't won on that national level, and that she does not think these are criticisms that really need to be brought forward.

She tried to argue that some of the inroads that Republicans made with working-class voters did have to deal with the cultural issues. She pointed to guns, transgender issues and also abortion, reproductive rights as well.

But what's happening right now in the Democratic Party is likely to continue for quite some time. There is a lot of soul searching, a lot of debate about messaging and strategy, and trying to determine what exactly went wrong for them in this election.

So it will be many more weeks, many more months, potentially years as the Democratic Party tries to get a handle of why they lost the election and what they need to do moving forward to win those voters back.

DEAN: Right. That's the key question, what do you do moving forward?

All right, Arlette Saenz, for out of Washington, D.C., thank you so much for that.

And joining us now to discuss this, Democratic Congresswoman Debbie Dingell of Michigan.

Congresswoman, thank you so much for being here.

REP. DEBBIE DINGELL (D-MI): Good to be with you.

DEAN: I first want to get your reaction to what Arlette was reporting on there, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's comments. I'm curious if agree with her, that you think -- do you think President Biden should have dropped out sooner? Do you think that would have made a difference?

DINGELL: You know, I'm someone that, quite frankly, is tired of the finger-pointing. We, all of us, every single Democrat has got do some very serious soul searching.

And by the way, there are wins that we can look at, too. The House has not taken a beating. But they might have picked up numbers that Donald Trump won by. And we have some Democrats up here who have who won in very tough districts.

I think the youth (INAUDIBLE) and before he ever lost. And we have working men and woman who are worried about whether they can afford groceries, whether their job is safe. Economic issues are real.

There are other issues that are there as well. But the number-one issue is people want to know, they want that economic security.

And I think we all have to soul search, every Democrat, every Democrat has got to do some serious soul searching.

DEAN: So, Congresswoman, what does that look like? How do you do the soul searching?

DINGELL: Well, I have been trying to figure that out. You know, the DNC has to do it as a party. We have got to really understand what the party and the DNC did right or wrong.

I have to tell you, I think that -- criticizing me directly. Maybe you have to stop listening to polls and consultants. Maybe that (INAUDIBLE). But every single Democrat (INAUDIBLE) that many times several and any (INAUDIBLE).

I'm at a chamber and special events and listen to people. I don't travel with an entourage. I'm not sheltered by people. I want to know what people are thinking.

And I've had some rough moments. I've had people scream at me. But I -- and a lot of people just stop and talk to me. You've got to listen to people. You have to know how they feel. You have to have empathy.

[16:35:00]

Donald Trump is very good at one thing, understanding fears and anxieties. But he plays to people's fear and anxieties. He understands them and he let's them -- he talks to those fears and those anxieties.

DEAN: And he made historic gains with a number of demographics across the country in this election. And was able to connect with them and they bought into his message and his promises, even with all of the history of the last four years, all the way back when he came down on that's escalator.

Do you think Democrats don't understand Americans right now?

DINGELL: Look, it's hard around world right now as people are coming out of the pandemic and they're realizing there are real consequences of Covid. But I'm telling you, people are hurting right now.

He did make gains. I spent a lot of time -- I don't just talk to my ministers in the African-American community I have. I try to be with them 24 months out of the election cycle.

They said to me the Democrats just come to use during elections. They don't listen to us.

We lost the Hispanic community. And I'll tell you, an issue is tearing my state apart and tearing this country apart, my state in particular, is the Mideast crisis for people on all sides.

We have to figure out how to deal with these things. These are problems. I don't know how to deal with some of them. But I sure know people are hurting and we have to figure out how to address those hurts.

DEAN: And what does that look like in terms of leadership? Do you think the people who have been leading the Democratic Party now in various ways, for really decades, is it time for them all to step aside and let a new generation try?

DINGELL: You know, I hate the words "new generation." Because we have representative government and it makes senior citizens think does that mean nobody cares, we shouldn't have a voice?

(CROSSTALK)

DEAN: Maybe a fresh voice. Just somebody that hasn't been --

(CROSSTALK)

DINGELL: -- a better way. I think you are doing to see -- look, President Biden is going to move on in January. A message has been sent of Kamala Harris. There are new people.

But we have to make sure that we are getting somebody new and fresh that's going to listen at the DNC. You're going to see those changes in -- at the state level.

We've got to -- I do think it's a combination of fresh new voices in some seasons. And that young people -- and I say seasoned. And people in between. Everybody needs to have a voice at the table, everybody.

I mean, one of the biggest problems we've got in this country right now is caregiving. Young people, in particular, as well. Young people can't find childcare. They can't afford it. They can't find the caregivers. They're worried about their parents and seniors. And spouses can't find someone to help them when it comes to caregiving or afford it.

So we had a deal with all of these. So we need representative government, the people that aren't afraid to speak up and say what needs to be said and tries to bring people together and find solutions.

I think the American people are tired of all of this fighting as well.

DEAN: And you say it says what needs to be said. Is that more of a speaking straight to people? There is this idea that Democrat have tiptoed around issues. They have been too politically correct. They can't just call things the way that -- you know, your average American might say it or whatever.

Do you agree with that assessment?

DINGELL: I'm going to tell you that I'm someone that is not exactly known for tiptoeing. I say it as it is.

DEAN: We do know that.

(CROSSTALK) DEAN: But your party, more broadly?

DINGELL: We've got to all start to talk -- and I do agree that we've got to be more candid with each other just talk straight.

DEAN: Yes, then quickly before I let you go. Democrats have two more months essentially of Joe Biden in office. What do you want to see him do? And what can they do in the next two months?

DINGELL: Well, I think one of the things that's very, very important is we will have to see if we can get judicial nominations pushed through. There are a lot of things I would like to see us do, but with the divided government and the Congress are not going to be able to do.

But we have to make sure that some of the programs that we have put in are protected. I don't want to see the (INAUDIBLE) getting lead out of the pipes. Make sure that we are a global marketplace, and to make sure that we have a mix of people, a mix of products.

There's a lot of issues. So we will have to deal with a lot of them.

And briefly, we have to work with colleagues across the aisle and make sure that we keep moving forward and we don't go back.

And the other thing, I want to lose labels. I think that the word "progressive," "conservative," there are a lot of people that just want to solve problems.

[16:40:07]

If you care about the environment, you don't have to be a progressive. You just have to be someone who cares about the next generation.

DEAN: All right, Congresswoman Debbie Dingell, thank you so much for your time.

DINGELL: Thank you.

DEAN: We will take a quick break. When we come back, authorities working to find the source of racist text messages sent to black Americans nationwide after the election.

Stay with us. You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

DEAN: State and federal authorities are working to find who sent racist text messages to black Americans in more than 20 states across America.

[16:45:01]

The texts tell people to, quote, "report to the nearest planation to pick cotton." One company's artificial intelligence blocked the vile messages from being sent. That company in Michigan, TextNow, told CNN it blocked and banned the user and shared everything with local police and the FBI, which is now investigating.

As CNN's Gabe Cohen reports, at least some of the texts were sent using an app that lets people send messages anonymously.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GABE COHEN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Tonight, investigators are trying to track down whoever is behind a series of personalized racist text targeting people of color in roughly two dozen states, from New York to California, some of them children.

TALAYA JONES, RACIST TEXT RECIPIENT: It's disgusting. It's really like -- it doesn't even seem like something that a human with a heart and soul would even do.

COHEN: Talaya Jones, one of many who received the text, personally addressed referencing picking cotton and slave catchers. And today, she received an email calling her the N-word.

(on camera): When you saw yet another message, what went through your mind?

JONES: That was insane. So that's what I was thinking like, somebody hacked my phone, like you don't feel safe in anything that you do, because you don't know who is doing it.

COHEN (voice-over): Some of the messages specifically referred to President-Elect Donald Trump.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: "I am one of Donald Trump's associates and your cotton picking starts from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. You will drop out of school and become a full-time cotton picker, making 75 cents an hour. Sounds good."

COHEN: The Trump campaign denouncing those texts in a statement, saying, "The campaign has absolutely nothing to do with them."

But the president of the NAACP says, quote, "These messages represent an alarming increase in vile and abhorrent rhetoric from racist groups across the country, who now feel emboldened to spread hate and stoke the flames of fear that many of us are feeling after Tuesday's election results."

JENNIFER GREEN, RACIST TEXT RECIPIENT: It's very scary for a lot of individuals. The fact that it happened the day after, you know, Election Day, it really speaks to what I think is going on here.

COHEN: At least some of the messages were sent using TextNow, a service that allows users to create phone numbers for free.

And the company says it "believes this is a widespread, coordinated attack." LIZ MURRILL, LOUISIANA ATTORNEY GENERAL: Don't click on it, delete it.

COHEN: Louisiana's attorney general telling CNN that the people behind this are using software that obscures their location, writing the messages through Poland, though the senders could be anywhere.

MURRILL: We have no way of knowing where the individual is, who is actually sending the emails, but we will continue to investigate it.

COHEN (on camera): And we've now learned the FCC is conducting an investigation, working with federal and state law enforcement to figure out who's behind this and how to stop them -- Jessica?

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, Gabe Cohen, thank you for that reporting.

Up next, we're getting a clearer look at what Trump's White House will look like during his second terms. What we know about the woman who will become his chief of staff.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[16:52:00]

DEAN: Trump's incoming White House chief of staff is a name most Americans may not have heard of. But she's played a major role in shaping his success behind the scenes.

Susie Wiles has clearly become one of Trump's most trusted advisors and a key architect of his 2024 comeback.

Here's Randi Kaye reporting.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Come here, Susie. Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you.

(APPLAUSE)

The Ice Maiden, we call her the Ice Maiden.

(CHEERING)

RANDI KAYE, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Donald Trump's newly minted chief of staff, Susie Wiles, does not enjoy the spotlight like her boss. The 40-year veteran of Republican politics prefers to operate behind the scenes.

STATE SEN. JOE GRUTERS (R-FL): She's a steady hand and she's a loyal foot soldier.

KAYE: On her LinkedIn page, under specialties, Wiles listed this, "Creating order from chaos," a skill that came in handy while running Trump's presidential campaign.

SUSIE WILES, REPUBLICAN OPERATIVE: Candidates matter. What they stand for matters.

KAYE: That was Wiles in 2020, speaking to CNN affiliate, WPLG, after she delivered a win for Trump in Florida as head of his campaign operation in the state. She rarely gives interviews.

Wiles first successfully ran Trump's Florida campaign in 2016, then again, in 2020.

WILES: The traditional Republican voter coalition just simply can't, I don't believe, elect Republicans any longer. So beginning to bring into the tent a larger number of Hispanic voters.

KAYE: After his presidency, Wiles served as Trump's de-facto chief of staff, then led his campaign. One of her goals, keep a close eye on who had access to the former president.

Wiles has a string of political campaign success stories. In 2010, she helped Rick Scott eke out a win to become governor of Florida.

In 2018, she was tapped to save Ron DeSantis' campaign for Florida governor. He won by 32,000 votes, the closest governor's election in state history.

After that, amid tensions, Wiles was ousted from DeSantis' inner circle.

She went back to work on Trump's Florida re-election team but was dismissed at DeSantis' urging.

In 2020, Trump brought her back amid concerns about his campaign's standing in Florida polls. He ended up winning Florida by more than three points against Joe Biden.

GRUTERS: Susie Wiles is the political version of Muhammad Ali. She does not lose. She is a relentless fighter.

KAYE: That fighting spirit was instilled early on. She grew up with two brothers and is the daughter of professional football player- turned-television broadcaster, Pat Summerall.

Before agreeing to her new role in the Trump White House, CNN has learned Wiles insisted on certain conditions. Top of the list, more control over who has access to the Oval Office.

GRUTERS: She wants to make sure that the president's priorities are, first and foremost, followed through on and that they don't want distraction. She is laser-focused.

KAYE (on camera): Senator Joe Gruters also describes Susie Wiles as calming. He says she's a real leader.

[16:55:00] He said that Donald Trump likes to surround himself with winners and that Susie Wiles has certainly earned her stripes as a winner given all her campaign victories that she's stacked up in the state of Florida and the most recent presidential election.

Now keep in mind, thought, of course, that Donald Trump had four staffs of staff during his first term as president. But Susie Wiles seems to want to bring an anti-chaos environment to this next Trump White House. So we'll see how that plays out.

Randi Kaye, CNN, Palm Beach County, Florida.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: Randi Kaye, thanks for that reporting.

And coming up, President-Elect Trump is set to visit the White House next week. What we know about the meeting with President Biden in the Oval Office. That's after a quick break.

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[17:00:08]

DEAN: You are in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Jessica Dean.