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Biden Prepares To Hand Over Power To President-Elect Trump; Black Americans In 20 Plus States Receive Racist Texts After Election; Man Arrested After 9 People Stabbed Over 2 Days In Seattle. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired November 09, 2024 - 20:00   ET

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

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PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: You were in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. It has been almost four years since former President Trump walked out of the White House. And we now know that next Wednesday morning, he's going to return and walk right back in.

Today, the Biden administration says, the two Presidents will meet in the Oval Office just four days from now in a precursor to what should be a peaceful transition of power. But the road to the inauguration may have a few bumps.

CNN learns the former President has not signed the ethics agreement required by law for this transition. CNN's Alayna Treene joins us live from West Palm Beach, Florida, with more. Alayna, we also just learned of two former Trump administration officials who will not be part of this next administration. Tell us more.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right. And if this is any preview, Pam, I'm sure you remember.

BROWN: Oh, yeah.

TREENE: But the Saturday night kind of newsy messages posts on social media, we are back. And I think it's a good preview of what to expect when Donald Trump is sworn into office in January. But yes, Donald Trump announced tonight not new hires, but two people he said, that will not be joining his second administration. And that includes Nikki Haley and Mike Pompeo.

I'm going to read for you just a little bit of what he posted. He said, quote, "I will not be inviting former Ambassador Nikki Haley or former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to join the Trump administration, which is currently in formation. I very much enjoyed and appreciated working with them previously and would like to thank them for their service to our Country."

Now, some background information on where this is coming from. I've been talking with several of Donald Trump's top advisers over the last 24 hours, but of course, over the last week repeatedly and how -- and in the process of them working on this transition stuff. And essentially, when it came to Pompeo, I was told that many people in Donald Trump's inner circle, in his orbit, believe that he did a really good job as Donald Trump's Secretary of State and that he deserved a seat at the table this time around.

However, his relationship with Donald Trump is not what it once was. Pompeo distanced himself from the former President after he had left office in 2021. Donald Trump, I'm told in private, has questioned whether or not Pompeo would actually be loyal to him or if he could trust him. Obviously, that is something that Donald Trump values above all else. And so many people were skeptical of whether or not he was actually going to be put up for a top tier job.

Now, one job that he had been floated for, I'm told, and some people had put his name into consideration for was Secretary of Defense. But clearly,

that is not going to happen now. Now, as for Haley, look, Donald Trump has told people who he is close to that he appreciated that she got on stage at the Republican National Convention in July, that she called for unity and ultimately supported him. But he still harbors, I'm told, a lot of animosity toward her for the attacks that she lobbed at him during the Republican primary. I mean, it was a very bitter primary between the two of them.

But then also, that she had kind of hung on so long during that primary and didn't drop out sooner. That is something that Donald Trump believes it wasn't appropriate. So that's where some of this is coming from.

BROWN: All right. Alayna Treene, thanks for bringing us the context around this decision coming from Donald Trump tonight about who will not be in his administration this time around.

Well, just over 10 weeks left as President Biden runs the clock out on his term, he and his team will have to move quickly to protect his legislation and his legacy from the incoming Trump administration. That's what we're being told from sources. That's what's happening behind the scenes.

CNN's Arlette Saenz has more on this. And Arlette, we know the Trump team is already preparing these executive orders on energy and climate. What is the White House doing now, the Biden White House doing to protect the measures it has enacted?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, sources have said that President Elect Trump plans to have these executive orders, proclamations relating to energy and the environment. Think of things like withdrawing from the Paris Climate Agreement or trying to shrink the size of national monuments to open up more drilling on public lands. The Biden administration is well aware that they can't protect everything that there are things that are going to be out of their control that Trump can try to take aim at.

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Those are some examples. But what they're trying to do is shore up their existing initiatives, trying to get more climate grants and awards out the door. Also, they had worked really hard to finalize rules and regulations much earlier in the year so that they wouldn't be -- Congress couldn't question them closer in those final weeks if they had potentially rolled them out after the election.

Just on Wednesday, they actually announced that they were going to limit the amount of drilling up in Alaska in their Arctic Wildlife Refuge. This is a very pristine area where there are many endangered animals. And so that is something that they want to protect from drilling. And so what you're seeing, the Biden administration across the energy, the EPA, climate initiatives, really trying to shore up and protect where they can, even though they are well aware that energy and climate is going to be one of those top targets for the Trump administration.

BROWN: I want to talk about Vice President Kamala Harris because we're just getting our first glimpse tonight of her. Tell us about this.

SAENZ: Yeah. So her niece, Meena, had actually posted a photo on Instagram that shows Vice President Kamala Harris playing with her grandnieces there. You can see them there on the floor. She's wearing her Howard Bison sweatshirt from where she went to college, and they're playing Connect Four. It's unclear exactly when this photo was taken, but I think it does show the connection that she has with her family, which has kind of been there with her throughout this entire process.

You know, we haven't seen Vice President Harris since she gave that speech at Howard University the day after she had lost this election. We'll see whether we see her in the coming week at all at the White House. But this is really one of those first moments that we've seen coming from her side so far.

BROWN: Personal moments. And it's -- you know, her niece talked about how this is where it all began. Because back in July, Kamala Harris told Dana Bash in that interview, well, back in July -- that the interview wasn't in July. But in July, she was apparently playing with her nieces --

SAENZ: Yes.

BROWN: -- and playing game.

SAENZ: She'd make her pancakes.

BROWN: Yeah, exactly. And so now, she has resumed that. Arlette Saenz, thank you so much.

It's not just policy that's in for a major overhaul. The 2024 election also brings a reckoning for both political parties. For Democrats, questions about messaging and major disconnects between the party and its once reliable Democratic voters. And for Republicans, the future is now. But the majority that voted for Donald has high expectations.

I want to bring in Presidential Historian Doug Brinkley. Hi, Doug. Great to see you. So the first hundred days are critical for any president. What do you think Trump's first hundred days will look like? What are you watching for?

DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Well, I think one thing I'm looking at is what's going on with the Ukraine and Russia. On Wednesday, President Biden's getting meeting with Donald Trump, and I am positive, he's going to try to convince Trump to stay the course with Zelensky, to double down with Ukraine at least for given six more months. Meanwhile, Biden is trying to arm them with missile systems as quickly as possible.

The other things is the deportation of undocumented workers. And I think for Donald Trump, that's first and foremost in his mind. With hyperbole, on the campaign trail, Trump talked about 11 million undocumented workers being rounded up and deported. You're not going to get 11 million, but there will be millions. And that has to be Project 1 for Trump along with securing the border. And then Donald Trump will sign every executive order he could possibly come up with. Not all will stick, but a lot will. And that will get him rolling on those first 100 days.

BROWN: So Republicans now have the White House. They have control of the Senate. The House is still up for grabs, but the GOP could win that, too. What does history tell us about parties that control both Congress and the White House?

BRINKLEY: Well, you know, Abraham Lincoln's favorite saying was, this too shall pass. Republicans don't want to get too ahead of their skis here. Yes, they want to do this crunch 100 days, but you know, time changes, things happen. You know, midterms are two years away. Congress, if Republicans maintain, it's going to be by just a few representatives.

So everybody has to stay the course, not panic. It's essentially a two party system. And what the question I would have is, who's the resistance to Donald Trump and the Democratic Party? Now, we don't know what Kamala Harris is going to do as an ex Vice President. Joe Biden is at the end of his line. Barack Obama may try to play an elder statesman role.

I think you'll see Governor Gavin Newsom being the television talking a resistance leader for about six months, particularly when it comes to public lands and climate. And then you'll see the Democratic National Committee do a big rethink and start looking for who can be leadership in two years, who can connect with the American public. There's got to be some humility on the Democratic side.

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They lost badly.

BROWN: Yeah. I mean, lots of lessons to learn from this past election. And you talk about how they lost badly. I mean, just look at the working class voters leaving in drones, especially white working class voters leaving the party. How do they win them back?

BRINKLEY: It's tricky. You know, one of the reasons Elon Musk left California and moved to Texas is because of tax structure. Yes, but also anti-labor union. In fact, Joe Biden, when he was promoting EVs, invited all of the electric vehicles, dude (ph) with climate, all the leaders to White House left Musk out because Biden wanted to be seen as pro-labor.

So Musk is going to play an outsized role. He's talking about cutting federal government easy by a third. That's trillions of dollars. Those are jobs. There will be repercussions. Where are those cuts coming? I suppose Department of Education a target, EPA, perhaps Agriculture and Interior. Anything that feels feel good Democratic, whether President Trump and the Republicans, how they deal with the Affordable Care Act will be interesting.

Trump might be happy just putting it as Trumpcare and reforming it a little bit and try to get a win with that in the history sweepstakes. But Nancy Pelosi spoke out today and basically blamed Joe Biden for not getting out early and not allowing a field of Democrats to rise. So there is a civil war within the Democratic Party between Pelosi, and Obama, and the Biden folks, and also Bernie Sanders and AOC on a more progressive front.

BROWN: Yeah, a lot of finger pointing. But also the larger question of could any Democrat have beat Trump given the climate right now? Trump still hasn't signed an ethics agreement required for presidential transitions. It includes a pledge vowing to avoid conflicts of interest once sworn into office.

Now, footnote, Trump himself signed this into law in March of 2020. What is your reaction to that? Does it have significance to you?

BRINKLEY: It has significance. It's typical Trump gall. Donald Trump has never believed in what's good for the goose is good for the gander. That's not a maxim he uses. So I doubt he would sign that. I think he's going to want to assert a new kind of power of the presidency.

You know, executive orders are really a more recent phenomena. You know, we call sometimes Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation executive order number one, but they weren't that much in the 19th century. But by the time you get to Franklin D. Roosevelt, you're getting 3,700. And Trump sees the power of executive power with the Supreme Court, which gives him immunity.

Basically, Supreme Court went with Richard Nixon on David Frost that the president does it, it must be legal. So Trump's going to try to weigh in onto -- in presidential power in a way we haven't seen. What's hopeful for the Democrats is look back to 1980 and look how Ronald Reagan took the map over.

You know what Reagan wanted to do? Drill the public lands and extract and they put James Watt as head of Interior. Watt was gone shortly later because the public wouldn't tolerate the mauling of our natural resources in such a fashion. And Reagan had put in somebody like Alexander Haig, his Secretary of State, this ultra hawk, only to fire them and replace them with the more moderating George Shultz.

So, you know, things will -- the doors of politics swing. But this is not good news for employees in Maryland and Delaware, the District of Columbia. There is going to be a big downsizing of the regulatory state. That's the goal of Trumpism. Get the federal government out of your life. And as for those blue collar workers you were talking about, there's been bitterness over NAFTA, which was passed really by or embraced by Bill Clinton and George Herbert Walker Bush.

Ross Perot ran got 19 percent in 1992. On the sucking sound that you hear of the jobs going to Mexico, meaning the gutting of cities like Milwaukee or Akron in the rights. And so Trump means his tariffs, but it's not going to be anywhere near as high Mexico or China sees intimating. There was a lot of hyperbole by Donald Trump on the campaign trail. That's going to get shrunk down to size. It doesn't mean it's not going to be ardent.

BROWN: Yeah. There's always a question of what a candidate says on the trail, what's actually going to turn into policy once they're in office. We'll be watching that closely. Douglas Brinkley, thank you so much.

And still ahead on the Saturday night, state and federal agencies are looking into racist texts sent to mostly black Americans, including children, after the election.

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And a suspect is in custody after a stabbing spree in Seattle. What we know about the nine victims. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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BROWN: Well, tonight, federal and state agencies are investigating and trying to find the source of a slew of racist, hate filled text messages. Those were sent to mostly black Americans right after the election, right here. One mass text messaging service tells CNN its artificial intelligence flagged and stopped one user from sending similar messages.

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CNN's Rafael Romo joins us now in Atlanta. Rafael, what more do we know about these messages?

RAFAEL ROMO, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi, Pam. Well, the messages appear to have been sent using free phone service and mobile data providers. And, well, one of these providers, known as TextNow, told CNN Friday the company believes this is a widespread coordinated attack. The hate filled text messages have been reported in more than 20 states, as you mentioned, from New York to California and the District of Columbia. Students from at least three historically black colleges and universities in Virginia, Tennessee and South Carolina have reported receiving messages. And according to Nevada's Attorney General's office, the texts appear to be robotext messages.

One of the biggest questions here, Pam, is how is it possible to do something like this anonymously? Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill told CNN Friday that whether this is a single person or a group, they are using anonymizing software to obscure their location, which makes it very difficult to track them.

As you can imagine, this is cause for great concern for those receiving the messages as well as parents and loved ones.

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ALYSE MCCALL, UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA STUDENT: This is truly disgusting. And whoever's sending it out is vile. No one should ever one think to send that message or receive that message. It just made me sick to my stomach.

JENNIFER GREEN, SON RECEIVED TEXT MESSAGE: We do talk about politics. It's not something that I hide from him because he is going to be a black man in America. So I make sure that he understands what the landscape of his adulthood could look like. The fact that it happened the day after, you know, Election Day, it really speaks to what I think is going on here.

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ROMO: And then The NAACP denounced the messages saying that they 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. We have also heard from President elect Donald Trump's campaign, Spokeswoman Karoline Leavitt told CNN that Trump's presidential campaign has absolutely nothing to do with these text messages.

CNN has also learned that another text messaging service called TechSpot was apparently able to stop a new user from sending racist text messages. TechSpot says that it was thanks to artificial intelligence that they immediately flagged the message and prevented it from being sent until they were able to conduct an internal review. And Pam, the company says that they then blocked the message and banned the user from their platform and, this is very important, shared the information with local law enforcement and the FBI. Pam.

BROWN: All right, Rafael Romo, thank you so much. Well, Trump's return to the White House can be credited in part to his increase in support from Americans of color. A CNN analysis shows the president elect won more black votes than any Republican candidate has in nearly five decades. Nationwide, one in five black men cast their ballot for Trump. Omar Jimenez looks at some of what motivated the change.

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OMAR JIMENEZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Have you actually noticed a shift among black men here in Pennsylvania?

LINWOOD HOLLAND, REPUBLICAN WARD LEADER, PHILADELPHIA: Definitely.

JIMENEZ: And what do you mean?

HOLLAND: I mean, when I was growing up, people used to say that the Republicans are for businesses and the Democrats were for the regular working class. I don't think that's the same right now. I think maybe the rules have flipped a little bit.

JIMENEZ: Linwood Holland is a Republican Ward Leader here in Philadelphia. This election, he says he has more Republican voters in his community than he's used to.

HOLLAND: I've been in some places where some guys say, you know, I kind of like what he's doing, and they might talk smack, too. You know what I mean? So it doesn't bother them what he's saying. They, you know, like his macho image, I guess, or whatever he's doing, and they just want to be like, I want to be part of something different.

JIMENEZ: Now, to be clear, the overwhelming majority of black men in Pennsylvania supported Vice President Kamala Harris for president and supported President Joe Biden in 2020.

Now, in 2020, based on CNN exit polls, just 10 percent of Black men in Pennsylvania supported Donald Trump. This election, though, that number jumped to 26% in the state. That's the biggest increase of any of the swing states. Nationally, though, the shift was much smaller, going from 19% of Black men in 2020 to 21% in 2024.

Have you noticed a shift within the black community just in conversations you've had over the last four to eight years?

CALVIN TUCKER, CHAIRMAN, PHILADELPHIA BLACK REPUBLICAN COUNCIL: Yeah, absolutely. From 2016, you know, there was quiet support, but it was groundbreaking to vote another way. In 2020, it became more of a reality, you know, that there is an option here, right?

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In the next cycle if that doesn't work, then we do something else, but we can't be permanently buried in the morass of voting one way for the rest of our life.

JIMENEZ: Calvin Tucker is a Trump ally and Chair of the Philadelphia Black Republican Council. He also believes economic reasons ranked above anything the former President has said.

TUCKER: You may misinterpret something someone says or, you know, you may -- I'm not voting for your attitude. I've worked for people that have not been as favorable to me as an individual. But at the end of the day, I can get a check and feed my family.

JIMENEZ: Now, we do know the economy was a top concern for a lot of voters this election cycle. But those two voices and their profiles aren't necessarily representative of the majority of black voters here in Pennsylvania or in Philadelphia. Or black women, more than 95% of them supported Vice President Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, according to CNN exit polling. But their answers do give a little insight to some of what we've seen from black men this election cycle, even if not the majority. Omar Jimenez, CNN, Philadelphia.

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BROWN: And our thanks to Omar. And still ahead for you, Iran is denying the U.S. Justice Department's claims that it plotted to kill Donald Trump before the election. What we know about the plot and the men charged. You're in the CNN newsroom.

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BROWN: Welcome back. Well, Iran is denying it had anything to do with an alleged plot to kill Donald Trump ahead of the presidential election. The country's foreign minister called the allegations a malicious conspiracy. And on Friday, the Justice Department announced federal charges against three people, including two U.S. citizens. One person is still at large in Iran.

Former CIA Officer Bob Baer joins us now. He is also the author of The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins. Great to see you, Bob. So first, I just want to get your reaction on this plot. How alarming is it, especially since it's not the first alleged attempt by the Iranian regime?

ROBERT BAER, FORMER CIA OFFICER: Well, first of all, the Iranians have a 45-year history of carrying out assassinations and terrorist attacks and they're all approved at the top. I don't know. I can't cite one where it was a rogue operation. So I don't believe them. I mean, we have wonderful intelligence on what the Iranians have done over the years. So I doubt this is a rogue attack.

Also, I think the Iranians feel that they are backed into a corner between Israel and the United States and they're looking at this as an existential conflict which could bring down the regime. And they're going to find ways to asymmetrically strike back at the United States. And of course, the first primary target would be President Trump.

BROWN: So the U.S. Government has repeatedly warned on that note that Trump -- that Iran may try to retaliate for a 2020 U.S. drone strike that killed top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani by trying to kill Trump or his former advisers. How committed do you think Iran is to seeking that revenge? And do you think these plots will just continue?

BAER: Well, Soleimani was not a foot soldier. He was very, very important in Iranian politics. You know, probably equally as important as the supreme leader, Khamenei. So assassinating him in 2020 was a red line for the Iranians. And I wouldn't be surprised if they try to retaliate.

Pamela, this is -- what worries me is we are drifting into a wider conflict in the Middle East. It's already a regional conflict, but it could get a lot worse. And if it turns out that we find out that Khamenei tried to assassinate Trump, how can he go to the White House and pretend it didn't happen and ignore it? I just don't see that happening.

BROWN: Well, there's still a lot to learn, obviously. But do you think the fact that Trump will now be back in office changes the threat level from Iran at all? BAER: No, I think it's worse now. I think it's much worse. And don't forget, these people that were caught were not the A team. There are Hezbollah cells that answer to Iran in this country that know what they're doing. They have assassinated leaders and very effectively. And it's very difficult for the FBI to roll up all of these guys. I mean, there's been bits and pieces. You know, we've picked up certain amount of people, and it's been in the newspapers, but I don't think people outside the government understand the full threat.

BROWN: You say you think it's worse now that he has been reelected. Tell us a little bit more about the why and how you see it?

BAER: Well, I think, for instance, if there's a decision is made that the Iranian regime is irredeemable, there is going to be an impetus for Israel and the United States to take out their nuclear facilities. Right now, they could be six months to a year from a nuclear bomb. Israel won't stand for it. We won't stand for it.

But the Israelis alone cannot take out those facilities. There's a certain ground element to. You got to put troops on the ground to get down into those bunkers. A very brief incursion, by the way, but nonetheless, that's the risky part of it, is it's not like going to war in Gaza or southern Lebanon.

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It's a real country with a real deterrence.

BROWN: All right. Bob Baer, thank you as always, for coming on to share your analysis.

BAER: Thank you, Pamela.

BROWN: And now, to Israel's fight against Hezbollah. Lebanon says at least 20 people were killed today after Israeli airstrikes. More than a dozen people were also wounded. As for Israel's war against Hamas, Qatar says it is suspending its role as mediator in peace talks over a lack of willingness to reach an agreement.

A diplomat familiar with this decision tells CNN Doha has also decided to close the Hamas office. And to date, the IDF said it dealt a severe blow to Hamas after claiming forces killed 1,000 fighters and captured 1,000 more in northern Gaza over the past three weeks. CNN's Chief Global Affairs correspondent Matthew Chance has more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE) MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CHIEF GLOBAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Well, the Head of the Israeli military says about a thousand Hamas militants have been killed in northern Gaza in the past three weeks. And another thousand captured visiting troops in the Jabalia, a refugee camp area of northern Gaza on Friday. Herzi Halevi, who is the Chief of the General Staff of the IDF, described those figures as, quote, "A significant achievement for Israel and a severe blow for Hamas."

The Israeli military encircled Jabalia more than a month ago and launched a new ground operation there, forcing residents to flee amid heavy fighting. It said the operation was necessary because it had seen signs of Hamas rebuilding in the area despite a year of heavy bombardment and two previous ground operations. Meanwhile, the U.N.'s children agency, UNICEF, says at least 64 attacks have taken place against schools in the Gaza Strip in the last month. That's almost two a day. An estimated 128 people were killed in the strikes, according to the UNICEF report, many of them children. Israel's military says civilians, including those in schools, are often used by Hamas as human shields.

The United Nations has also issued a new and detailed report on casualties in Gaza in the first six months of the conflict there, saying close to 70 percent were women and children. UN Human Rights Chief Volker Turk said the report showed that civilian casualties were a direct consequence of a failure to comply with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. The Israeli military has yet to comment on the report. Matthew Chance, CNN, Jerusalem.

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BROWN: As the (inaudible) head police arrest a man after nine people are stabbed over two days in Seattle. What we're learning about the seemingly random attacks. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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BROWN: Some positive news today from the front lines of the battle against California's mountain fire. Improving weather conditions are helping firefighters to contain the blaze. Strong winds have died down and humidity levels have risen. The bad news, the winds that fueled the fire could return next week. The fire has destroyed more than 100 properties while burning more than 20,000 acres of land. And the cause of this fire remains unknown.

Seattle authorities have arrested a man that they believe is linked to a 38-hour stabbing spree in the city's Chinatown International District. Police say the attacks were completely random and injured nine victims. CNN National Correspondent Camila Bernal has more.

CAMILA BERNAL, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Pam, police say that witnesses were able to give a description of this suspect and then verified this suspect after the arrest. Authorities also saying that they found a weapon in the area where the suspect was arrested. And they also were able to recover a knife that was still in one of the victims. So they will be able to test this and use it to verify their theories. Now, this all happened within 38 hours in the Chinatown International District. And we know that at least nine, maybe even 10 people were stabbed.

Now, on Friday, five people were stabbed and of those, one was treated at the scene and then released. The other four were taken to Harborview Medical Center in critical condition. The hospital was able to say on Friday night that two of these victims had been upgraded in terms of their conditions. Two others were still in critical condition. Now unfortunately, four, maybe five other people were also stabbed on

Thursday. And again, police believe that the same person is responsible. Take a listen to what authorities are seeing.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DEPUTY CHIEF ERIC BARDEN, SEATTLE POLICE: There's a similar description, a suspect description. The randomness of this, this is a horrific tragedy, a mass casualty event. Officers located a suspect matching a description given by witnesses. Officers detained that individual witnesses were then brought by who looked at that suspect and confirmed that that was the correct person.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BERNAL: And you heard their authorities saying that they believe that most of these stabbings were random. But there is one stabbing that happened on Thursday where police say that a 60-year-old man was in his car and someone tried to forcibly open the door to steal his cell phone.

[20:45:03]

They tried to stab him in the chest. He was able to block that attack and was cut in his hand.

So again, what they're trying to do is verify whether or not this stabbing is also related to the nine others. Regardless, this has been extremely concerning for the people of this community, the people that live there and work there, or even have to walk through this area. This is a horrific attack. Pam?

BROWN: Certainly. Camila Bernal, thank you. And so ahead, Donald Trump's loyal base, how white men laid the foundation for Trump's win. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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BROWN: Trump's victory this week wouldn't have been possible without one group in particular, young white men. That group has become a cornerstone of his base even as Republicans continue to lose support among women voters.

Joining us now to better understand how and why they propelled Trump to a second term as founding editor of Gawker and contributing opinion columnist at the New York Times, Elizabeth Spiers.

Elizabeth, thank you for coming on. So you make the case in your recent opinion piece in the New York Times, quote, "On the long road to Election Day, no group of voters was more loyal to Donald Trump than young white men. Mr. Trump offered a regressive idea of masculinity in which power over women is a birthright. How so, in your view? ELIZABETH SPIERS, FOUNDING EDITOR, GAWKER: So Trump is basically a walking avatar of an idea of masculinity that not just young white men into, but is very dominant in our culture. And it says that the good kind of masculinity is a masculinity that represents strength, physical toughness, mental toughness, resistance to adversity. And a lot of these things seem like they're, you know, good qualities. But it also represents things like aggression or anything that might be construed as non-feminine.

And so if you look at the way that Trump talks about himself, he said -- he talks about himself as a strong man. And he tends to cast his opponents as being weak and he feminizes them. Even, you know, Tim Walz, who encapsulates a lot of the masculine ideals, he referred to as tampon Tim. And for younger white men who are seeking that kind of validation, the top of the hierarchy where they rest is appropriate, and that's where they should be. Donald Trump reinforces all those things for them.

BROWN: Yeah. So in your article, you're really -- you are trying to make the argument that, look, Donald Trump appealed to men who may not be where they want to be in life by saying, look, it's not really your fault. It's because of the, you know, it's because of women and DEI programs, and that kind of thing. But then you look at, you know, a hire like Susie Wiles to be his Chief of Staff, the first female Chief of Staff, a very powerful position. What do you make of that?

SPIERS: Well, I think it's not representative of what he's done generally. He certainly has an elevated women in his policymaking. And one of the things that you have to consider when you think about what our dominant mode of masculinity is, is that it's not just men that buy into it. White women voted in huge amounts for Trump, and partly because they consider themselves adjacent in that power structure to white men.

There are a lot of non-white men who voted for Trump on the same basis because they have an idea of what a leader should look like. And it's someone who should embody all of these qualities. So Trump can occasionally hire a woman in a position of prominence or a non-white person, or maybe a gay person, or any other person who has an identity that he spent most of the campaign denigrating. And it doesn't really change the fact that his rhetoric heavily elevated white men and told white men that this is, you know, you belong at the top of the hierarchy. This is the natural order of things. And that's what makes it morally correct and good.

BROWN: This election cycle. Podcasts, as you know, were more important than they've been in the past. I mean, both campaigns used them to generate headlines and they were targeting the podcast based on the audiences. But Republicans seem to be a step ahead in using them to reach voters. What do you think about the advantage they had in that space?

SPIERS: They are a step ahead. It's a frustration many of -- many people like me have. You know, I have a nine-year-old son. And he's online to some extent. And I look at what people online are telling men and, you know, the popularity of these podcasters here particularly, they frame a lot of what they talk about around language of self-improvement, which is ostensibly healthy. But then, their definitions of what a healthy strong person is skew heavily toward these very regressive masculine ideals.

So you don't have to go very far from somebody like Joe Rogan, who's very mainstream, to get to somebody like Andrew Tate, who is a more, you know, directly misogynistic podcaster who's very popular with younger men. And what these people are promising younger men is a way to live a life where they're successful, they're successful with women in particular, and they can make themselves into figures like Donald Trump who are wealthy and, you know, at the top of the power hierarchy.

BROWN: So you mentioned Joe Rogan.

[20:55:01]

Trump sat with Joe Rogan for a three-hour interview. We were just showing clips of that. Harris was in talks with Rogan, but eventually declined his invitation. Was that a mistake?

SPIERS: Well, here's the thing. She agreed to do that, but it was very late in the campaign. And he said she has to come to me and she needs to give me a minimum of three hours. And he hasn't made those demands of other people --

BROWN: Well, I mean, Trump went to him. Trump went to him and she diverted her plane to go on SNL. Just that would be the counter argument.

SPIER: Well, I think in that case, SNL also offered Trump a spot with Rogan. He had already done the interview with Trump on some of Trump's terms and he'd done it earlier, you know, that it seems like the as to Harris was last minute. But also, you know, he could have made that work and he chose not to.

And I think partly because he knows that his core audience is heavily composed of people who like Donald Trump because he embodies these ideals of masculinity. And I doubt he wanted to alienate them. You know, Joe Rogan is still a businessman, you know, so it's not just a matter of him. He's not a journalist. He's not trying to get to the truth. He's running his own show in a way that he would run it personally.

BROWN: All right. Elizabeth Spiers, thank you for coming on to share your opinion on this. We appreciate it.

SPIERS: Thank you for having me.

BROWN: Well, coming up, President elect Donald Trump is set to visit the White House next week. What we know about the meeting with President Biden in the Oval Office. You're in the CNN Newsroom.

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