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Source: Trump "All In" On Matt Gaetz For Attorney General; Trump Vows To Go After "Political Enemies" With Help From Allies"; Trump Weighs Choosing Fierce Loyalist Kash Patel To Lead FBI; Trump's Hard-Core MAGA Cabinet Picks Stun Congress; Israeli Strike On Gaza School Reportedly Kills 10; Hezbollah Considers US-Israeli Ceasefire Proposal; Michigan Voters React To Election Results. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired November 16, 2024 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:02]

JESSICA DEAN, CNN HOST: Welcome to our viewers in the United States and around the world. You're in the CNN Newsroom, and I'm Jessica Dean in Atlanta.

President-elect Donald Trump moving at a rapid clip to fill out his administration. However, there is time for a victory lap tonight. Moments ago, he boarded his plane en route to New York City. Trump will attend tonight's UFC event at Madison Square Garden, the site of one of his most memorable and notable campaign rallies.

Trump also, though, facing some turbulence with some of his Cabinet picks. Pete Hegseth, Trump's choice for Secretary of Defense, is confronting a past accusation of sexual misconduct. Tulsi Gabbard, President-elect Trump's choice for Director of National Intelligence, has a concerning history of spreading Russian conspiracy theories and propaganda.

And Matt Gaetz, his choice for Attorney General, was the subject of investigations stemming from alleged sex trafficking and drug use. Gaetz resigning from Congress this week, closing the door on a House ethics investigation. And despite all of that controversy, CNN is reporting tonight Trump sees Gaetz as his most important Cabinet pick and is pressing forward to make Gaetz America's top cop.

CNN's Steve Contorno is near Mar-a-Lago, where Trump has spent much of his time assessing candidates. And Steve, what more can you tell us about the specific status of Matt Gaetz' nomination and his own efforts to start lobbying Republican senators to confirm him in the role of AG?

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: Jessica, we are learning tonight that Donald Trump remains determined to see Matt Gaetz' nomination through. He is very aware of the coverage and the blowback that Gaetz' nomination has received since that surprising announcement.

And he has heard from his allies on Capitol Hill and Republican senators who are concerned that Gaetz does not have the support to get to 51 votes in the Senate. But Donald Trump is not backing down. He is telling his allies that he will dig into this fight. He is, quote, "100 percent in on Gaetz". One source telling us, quote, "He is not going to back off. He's all in." And as you said, Gaetz has been trying to build support on his own by calling members of the U.S. Senate, trying to, in many cases, mend fences and build bridges within a body that he has done nothing but burn bridges.

He's a political arsonist, really, over the past few years, who has caused interparty fights and has not tried to make friends. Well, now he is trying to get support, as he knows that he faces a tough test ahead.

Again, he does have the president's support, because, as you said, Donald Trump views the attorney general as the most important position in his Cabinet. And he wants someone who is closely aligned and incredibly loyal to him for that role.

He does not believe he had that loyalty from his attorney generals during his first term. And he sees Matt Gaetz as someone who will not only oversee the dismantling of the Justice Department that he has promised, but also will be a vocal defender of Donald Trump on the media. That is an important distinction that he sees that Matt Gaetz has and what gave him the leg up over some of the other names that he considered for the job.

DEAN: Yes, it is excellent reporting, new reporting tonight. I also wanted to ask you what more you know about Trump's promise from the campaign trail and now push to get civil servants, some civil servants, out of the U.S. government.

CONTORNO: Well, conservative groups have been anticipating this moment for years and laying a ground -- laying the groundwork and a roadmap of sorts for how Trump could go about finding potential partisans in the United States government.

Well, how have they been doing that? By sending thousands and thousands of records requests to government agencies, asking for e- mails and text messages of government employees that might include partisan phrases or that might tip off that they are liberals.

They've been looking for e-mails that contain the name Elon Musk. They've been looking for e-mails that have references to climate change or DEI programs. Another group has been calling through the campaign finance contributions of members of the Department of Homeland Security, looking for people who donated to democratic causes.

People who also have backgrounds and previous work experience working for groups that are sympathetic to migrants and also their social media posts, trying to find people in the Department of Homeland Security who will not go through with Donald Trump's plans for mass deportation.

And that group has put out a list of 60, quote, "targets" that they believe should be fired by a Republican administration. Now, we don't know if the Trump administration has seen this work yet, although talking to the people involved, they believe that the Trump administration, the incoming administration is aware.

One person saying to us, we run in the same circles.

[19:05:07]

DEAN: All right, Steve Contorno with the latest from West Palm Beach, Florida. Thank you so much for all of that reporting.

And I want to turn now to our panel with Republican strategist Katie Frost and Tara Setmayer, co-founder and CEO of The Seneca Project. Good to have both of you here. Thanks so much for being here.

TARA SETMAYER, CO-FOUNDER, CEO, THE SENECA PROJECT: Thank you.

KATIE FROST, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Good to see you.

DEAN: Yes. Good to see both of you. We know, as Steve was just reporting, a source telling us that Trump is full steam ahead with Matt Gaetz, quote, "100 percent" getting -- 100 percent and getting him confirmed for attorney general, despite all of the controversies around him and acknowledging that this is going to be an uphill battle to get those 51 Senate Republicans.

Katie, is this how you think Trump should be using a lot of his political capital?

FROST: Well, it's great to begin with you again, Jessica. You know, President Trump has a mandate from the American people to govern. They heard his message on the campaign trail. They know what he has promised to do. And now he's assembling the team he believes he needs in order to get that agenda through.

And to do what he told the American people he was going to do, to disrupt Washington and the politics as usual and bring real change for the American people. And he obviously believes the Justice Department is a critical part of that. And that's why he is seeing you there and all across these different appointments he's making.

These are people going to bring real change to the typical Washington picks. And of course it's going to be a little different because President Trump is going to be a different kind of president than we've seen before.

The people in the United States soundly rejected four more years of the same old politics we've always seen. That's why we have President Trump as the president-elect now. And that's why we're seeing this unique and I believe formidable team coming together.

DEAN: And Tara, Katie does have a point that President Trump was not -- didn't hold these ideas and plans secret. He told everybody what he was going to do and Americans voted for him. How do you see this?

SETMAYER: Well, I see this as the American people have effed around and are about to find out. The people who voted for Donald Trump that wanted change. I don't think they voted for a Cabinet of people who are wholly unqualified that want to completely dismantle our democratic institutions.

This is not reform. This is dismantling and destroying. And I don't think the American people who voted for change, who want their eggs to be less expensive, voted for people like Matt Gaetz, who are potentially criminals, who are completely unqualified, for someone whose ethics report is so damning that he resigned from Congress because they wanted to try -- to potentially try and hide it from the American people.

I don't think the American people voted for that. I don't see how appointing Matt Gaetz or Pete Hegseth or Tulsi Gabbard or RFK Jr., people, once again, who are wholly unqualified for these incredibly important positions, how that benefits the American people.

You know what benefits? It benefits Donald Trump. How do loyalty tests benefit the American people? How do court-martialing people in response to Donald Trump's disagreeance with how the Afghanistan pull out was executed, which is now being reported, that they're looking to court-martial people over it, how does that benefit the American people?

I think we need to be very careful about how we couch our language and how we describe what Donald Trump is trying to do and try to hide it under the auspices of its -- for the benefit of the American people. That's not a mandate. That's not the mandate the American people voted for if we want to believe it was about the price of eggs.

DEAN: And, Katie, staying on Gaetz for a second, sources also told CNN that Gaetz has been reaching out directly to Republican senators to try to start a conversation with them, win them over. We know that Trump is going to put everything he's got behind this nomination.

And yet you do have this ethics report that now Speaker -- House Speaker Mike Johnson, after saying he didn't think that a speaker should be involved, has said now he does not want that to come out. Obviously, some senators do want to see that.

They want to know what they're voting for before they vote for him. Where do you come down on how much information that these Senate Republicans and these Senate Democrats who do constitutionally have a right to consent and advice here and to vote in this, how much information are they entitled to here?

FROST: I'm sure they will have access to all of the relevant information regarding all of the different candidates, because this is about, of course, the Senate has to do their job. They advise. They consent. They review. But we also have to realize that they want to give the president of the United States the team that he needs in order to do the job he was elected to do.

Going back to Attorney General Merrick Garland received 16 Republicans voted for him because they believed that President Biden wanted him on his team to do a job, and they gave him the courtesy of voting for him across party lines in order to help the President have the team he wanted around him. And I'm sure they will be willing to give that same courtesy to President Trump. [19:10:18]

DEAN: Yes. And I hear you because, look, I think with Senator Marco Rubio, for example, or, you know, if you go through some of these other nominees that we're going to very likely see a lot of what you're talking about, some bipartisan votes on that.

But in the Matt Gaetz case, you know, our reporting is that an attorney who represents two of the women who are witnesses in the investigation to Gaetz said on Friday, one of his clients saw the congressman having sex with a minor. We know that Gaetz was a subject of a separate DOJ sex crimes investigation.

Now, that ultimately ended without any charges. But, you know, you can appreciate that that's kind of a different thing, right?

FROST: Like I said, I'm sure there's going to be all the relevant information will be shared with the committee. And, you know, very well, things leak in Washington all the time. So we'll see what happens when those confirmation hearings actually do come about. I'm sure we'll be talking about them now and when they happen, because it will be must watch TV.

DEAN: Yes. Tara, I want to play a clip from Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, but she has been known to also cross party lines and vote with Democrats. And this is what she said about Matt Gaetz. I want to play that.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

REP. SUSAN COLLINS (R), MAINE: I was shocked, as were many of my colleagues, by the nomination of Representative Matt Gaetz, because there are many serious allegations pending against him. Fortunately, that's why we have the Senate advice and consent process. It involves a background check and investigation by the committee and public hearings at which he can be fully questioned.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

DEAN: Tara, do you think that the Senate is going to be a check where it feels like it needs to be on some of these nominees? Obviously, not all of them.

SETMAYER: I would hope so. Their allegiance should be to the Constitution and to upholding our democratic institutions, not to Donald Trump. He's not a cult leader. Well, maybe he is, but I'm not going to hold my breath because these same senators that were shocked and aghast at January 6th didn't do the right thing by removing him, as they should have.

They haven't done the right thing in a number of instances when it comes to Donald Trump, which is why we're in this situation we're in now. They've enabled him. So forgive me if I'm not, you know, going to rely on Susan Collins and her being shocked about this.

Talk is cheap. Let's see if she does the right thing alongside other Republican senators. And if they have the decency to say no to these unqualified, dangerous -- they're more than just unqualified, these are dangerous picks. And they're an affront to everything that our democratic institutions actually represent.

Matt Gaetz -- are we really going to sit here and compare Matt Gaetz to Merrick Garland or to other people who have held the distinguished position of our attorney general in this country? Matt Gaetz is one of the most despised people in Congress.

He is under investigation for some pretty horrific things, as we've already discussed. And if all of these people were so -- if it was above board, then why is Donald Trump pushing for recess appointments? Because he knows they aren't.

So this is going to be a true test of whether these Republican senators pledge their allegiance to uphold their constitutional oath and actually want what's best for America and our democracy, or whether they're going to be fealty -- pledge their fealty to Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, we've seen what they've done in the past, so I'm not confident in what they're going to do. But let's hope that they prove us wrong.

DEAN: All right, Tara and Katie, I'm going to ask you guys to stay with me because there is no shortage of things to talk about. We have more to talk about, including the possibility of retaliation by President-elect Trump and his allies. It was a frequent topic on the campaign trail.

We're going to talk more about that when we come back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:18:45]

DEAN: President-elect Trump spent much of his time on the campaign trail vowing to go after his so-called political enemies. And now that he's set to return to the White House, some in Washington worry that Trump will do exactly what he's been accusing Democrats of doing -- weaponizing the government.

CNN's Sara Murray lays out what that could mean in a new Trump administration.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I am your retribution. I am your retribution.

SARA MURRAY, CNN POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For President- elect Donald Trump and his allies, the sweet taste of victory could come with an even sweeter chaser -- revenge.

TRUMP: The Biden crime family.

Liz Cheney is a stupid war hawk.

The FBI and the Justice Department have become vicious monsters.

MURRAY (voice-over): Trump believes, without evidence, the Justice Department unfairly targeted him when he left the White House. Now the list of perceived enemies stretches from political foes to those who investigated him to senior civil servants in the federal government.

TRUMP: Well, revenge does take time. I will say that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does.

TRUMP: And sometimes revenge can be justified.

MURRAY (voice-over): The President-elect's taste for vengeance has been echoed by his allies and advisers, like his pick for attorney general, former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz.

REP. MATT GAETZ (R), FLORIDA: We either get this government back on our side or we defund and get rid of, abolish the FBI, CDC, ATF, DOJ, every last one of them, if they do not come to heal.

[19:20:05]

MURRAY (voice-over): Retribution also top of mind for right-wing podcaster Steve Bannon in this conversation with Kash Patel, who's being floated for a role in the next administration.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: Do you feel confident that you will be able to deliver the goods, that we can have serious prosecutions and accountability?

KASH PATEL, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE UNITED STATES SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. We're going to come after you. Whether it's criminally or civilly, we'll figure that out.

MURRAY (voice-over): For Trump, there are multiple paths for payback. He's already floated special counsels to look into his political foes.

TRUMP: I will appoint a real special prosecutor to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the United States of America, Joe Biden, and the entire Biden crime family.

MURRAY (voice-over): Last time he was president, he pressed the Justice Department to pursue specific investigations. During this campaign, he's rattled off a long list of potential targets.

TRUMP: The laptop is from Russia, they said. And they should be prosecuted for what they did.

She should be prosecuted. Nancy Pelosi should be prosecuted.

MURRAY (voice-over): A second path to retribution is through a fully Republican Congress. Trump's political allies could investigate his perceived enemies. REP. JIM JORDAN (R), OHIO: We want the information we think the American people are entitled to the --

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Will Jack Smith be called to testify?

JORDAN: We'll have to see.

MURRAY (voice-over): Trump's allies also frequently discuss a third avenue, gutting senior levels of the federal government, particularly in law enforcement and intelligence agencies.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Those people have to be eliminated. I mean, taken out at the knees, you know, dismissed, take their clearances away, take their badges away.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I want to be the person who crushes the deep state.

MURRAY (voice-over): Whether all these fiery threats translate into true retribution is an open question. But Trump's potential targets are already making plans. Some are exploring citizenship abroad. Others are weighing their next career steps with an eye toward jobs that offer fatter paychecks in the event they need to hire their own attorneys. And they might, if people like Steve Bannon get their way.

BANNON: The hunted are going to become the hunters.

(END VIDEO TAPE)

DEAN: All right, Sara Murray, thank you for that report.

And our panel back with us. Thank you so much for being here. As Sara pointed out, Trump is considering Kash Patel to lead the FBI. And, Katie, we listened to his clip there that he was talking about coming after people. And in his election night speech, the President-elect said, we're going to help our country heal.

He talked about bringing Americans together. I'm just curious if you think that's the right pick for bringing America together.

FROST: I think the president is going to make his selection. I don't know who will be the FBI director. I'm looking forward to that announcement, like all the different announcements that have been coming out from the transition team. But we do need to bring this country together.

And the American people sent a very strong message on election night. And that is they are dissatisfied with how the government has been run. They are upset with how things are impacting them directly. They want wholesale change.

And so the idea that we leave everything just as it is, we leave everyone exactly where they are, that's not going to cut it. That's not going to be delivering on President Trump's promise to the American people, which is that he's going to protect the border and make that secure. He's going to lower prices. He's going to make sure that we are energy dominant, not just energy independent. And if you have people at all levels of government who are trying to thwart that, well, then that is something that needs to be addressed.

DEAN: Tara, what are your thoughts on this?

SETMAYER: Well, I mean, we can have political doublespeak all we want and use talking points all we want to try to rationalize what Donald Trump is about to do to our government and our system. But I need to dispense with this idea that he has some kind of mandate to completely dismantle our current government system.

Donald Trump, as we see that by the popular vote, is only going to win by less than the mandate, if we want to call it a mandate, that President Bush had, OK, or Hillary Clinton, or any of these other people who won the popular vote but maybe didn't win the presidency.

I mean, this idea that it's a mandate, does he control -- do Republicans control all of the government? Yes, they do. But the mandate here to completely dismantle our government and our democracy in the way in which we've been accustomed to 250 years of is not what the American people voted for.

So we need to come to terms with Donald Trump's priority is not the American people. It's retribution for himself. And that is being demonstrated and played out by the people he's choosing. He's not choosing the best people.

Kash Patel for FBI director? There's a reason why the FBI director's term is for 10 years. It's not supposed to be a politicized position. But the only reason why to target the FBI director, who still has two years left, I believe, is because Donald Trump doesn't feel he's sufficiently loyal to him.

That should not be the qualifications. And that's what we're seeing here with all of these major picks. We are -- our economy is actually doing quite well. We are the envy of the world.

[19:25:08]

However, the economic policies that Trump has thrown out there are not going to make the American people's lives better. But that doesn't seem to be his priority. His priority is picking loyalists, because that's what authoritarians do.

So, yes, the American people, they have a choice in two more years. And then in four years for the presidency. Is he going to overstep? Well, it looks like so far he's overstepping. And frankly, it is in the hands of the elected representatives in a co-equal branch of government, whether they want to add balance to this and say, stop athwart history when no one else will, which is what conservatives were supposed to do.

But Bill Buckley used to say back in the days when he was considered someone that was a stalwart of conservative values. Bill Buckley spinning in his grave. And people who claim to be actual Republicans and Conservatives and believe in liberal democracy, there's no way I don't know how they sleep at night, condoning these choices and what Donald Trump is about to do to our country.

DEAN: Katie, the Trump transition team is reportedly skipping -- considering skipping these traditional FBI background checks for his Cabinet picks. Do you think that's the right move? Do you think that's appropriate?

FROST: Well, I would say in light of what has been happening with the FBI recently, I understand why there is a little bit of distance between the president's transition team and the FBI. Remember, they did raid Mar-a-Lago.

So I understand why they may be hesitant to trust all the information they received.

DEAN: But they also raided the President -- I mean, they investigated President Biden, too. Yes.

FROST: What I'm saying the -- I understand why they'd be hesitant maybe to trust all the information that they received from the FBI. But this is not that dissimilar from how things were conducted after the 2016 election. They are still reviewing these candidates and vetting them through other sources.

But I will go -- just want to go back one second here --

DEAN: Yes, go ahead.

FROST: You say it's not a mandate. Respectfully, 49 out of 50 states went further red than they had in the previous cycle. As we saw from the infamous clip from this very network, when Jake Tapper asked John King, where are the counties that Vice President Harris is over- performing President Biden? The map was entirely gray.

There wasn't a single county where she was over-performing him. So you can say it's not a mandate?

SETMAYER: And it's been updated since then. It's been updated since then. It's been 1 -- it's 1.6 percent right now. It's updated since then. It's not a mandate any more than other people who claim they had mandates. It's really it's not.

And you also had Democratic senators who performed down-ballot better than Kamala Harris. And looking down-ballot were Democrats also out- performed Kamala Harris compared to the top of the ticket.

So, you know, let's -- we can argue that all we want about it, it's a mandate. But like I said, I don't think it's a mandate for chaos and for dismantling our democratic institutions. That's not the mandate. It's about the cost of eggs is what everyone was telling us, right?

So if that's the case, I would like to know how these appointees, how court-martialing people, how putting in charlatans like Kash Patel and potential sex traffickers like Matt Gaetz and others into these positions. So people who are, you know, sympathetic to Putin's point of view, and we don't know, you know, what her thoughts are on other things as like Tulsi Gabbard as the DNI.

Pete Hegseth, who's accused of sexual assault, who has no experience running anything as a Sec Def. How is this a -- is this the mandate the American people really voted for? Maybe the MAGAs. I don't think the other folks who are worrying about the cost of affordability in the country actually voted for that.

DEAN: Katie, we're almost out of time, but I want to give you a last -- go ahead. Go ahead.

FROST: The reason those senators probably outperformed Vice President Harris is that most of them got to actually run in primaries, unlike her. She was instilled at the last minute by the Democratic Party, and that is why you want to talk about democracy.

But a lot of people looked at that and went, she didn't receive a single vote in a primary. How is this person supposed to be the democratically elected nominee? But you know what? I know this is going to be an ongoing conversation, and I look forward to talking with both of you again soon.

DEAN: All right.

SETMAYER: You supported a guy that supported a violent insurrection to overthrow a free and fair election. So I think it's pretty rich. You're going to call Kamala Harris. What happened with her? Undemocratic.

DEAN: OK, all right. We got to go, guys. Katie Frost, thank you. Tara Setmayer, thank you. We appreciate both of you.

CNN is learning about --

FROST: Thank you, Jessica.

DEAN: Thank you -- is learning about extensive discussions taking place in Beirut around a new ceasefire proposal. We're going to have much more about that after the break here in the CNN Newsroom.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:33:50]

DEAN: An Israeli strike on a school inside a refugee camp in Gaza has reportedly killed ten people. That attack coming days after the US quietly ignored its own deadline for Israel to increase the tiny amount of humanitarian aid it allows into Gaza.

Israel also this weekend intensifying attacks across its northern border, hitting Beirut again today in the fifth consecutive day of strikes. And despite this, sources telling CNN, "extensive discussions" are happening between leaders there on a US ceasefire proposal with an answer from Hezbollah expected as soon as Monday.

Joining us now is former Middle East state department negotiator Aaron David Miller.

Aaron, thanks so much for being here with us. Good to see you.

AARON DAVID MILLER, CNN GLOBAL AFFAIRS ANALYST: Good to see you, too.

DEAN: I want to start first with this news about a potential ceasefire. What do you think about this, does it sound like both sides are ready to come to the table and is timing here, kind of the political environment, how much is that playing a role as well?

MILLER: You know, we've had this discussion in other matters, Jessica, over the last year. You know, my view is that Arab-Israeli negotiations have two speeds, slow and slower. And while I think there's a reasonable chance that between now and the end of the year, you could actually get a diplomatic off ramp between Israel and Hezbollah.

[19:35:10]

I still think it's going to be a pretty, pretty heavy lift. The Iranians appear to have acquiesced and appear to be supportive, and the Israelis, I think that's the reason that I'm relatively optimistic. Netanyahu, I think could actually do this deal, there are no hostages, there's no Palestinian authority, there is no Palestinian state.

It's really up to Hezbollah, I think, to make a judgment decision whether or not they're prepared to accept the terms which would have them push back beyond the Litani River, which is anywhere from eight to 18 miles north of the Israeli border and you're going to end up with a side letter between the US and Israel, not as part not a part of the agreement that the Israelis would have the right to prevent or preempt if Hezbollah returns to the south.

DEAN: Yes, and I also just kind of keeping that over here of course, Hezbollah, a proxy of Iran and there are reports out there from "The New York Times" and the Associated Press that Elon Musk met earlier this week with the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations.

Iran's Foreign Minister denying that happened, but seeing that Elon Musk is already injected himself into another major international conflict, he was on the phone with Zelenskyy and President-elect Trump. What do you make of this report that Iran is denying but nonetheless, this report that that meeting occurred.

MILLER: I can only guess, but I'm guessing that in fact, it did occur. And I'm sure that Elon Musk did so with the understanding of the authority of Donald Trump. You know, were only supposed to have one president at a time, now we seem to have three.

We have Joe Biden, who is the president. We have Donald Trump the president-elect, and we have Elon Musk playing a role. I cannot think in the 20-plus years I spent in government of another private citizen playing such an extraordinary role in diplomacy. And here's a guy who's under some federal regulatory scrutiny by the SEC, the FAA, the FCC and the Justice Department and he's got billions of dollars of government contracts and he is now conflict of interest.

I mean, its unprecedented And it frankly -- and Donald Trump isn't even president yet. And I think we've got a --were crashing through another norm and guardrail. I don't think it's a good sign, frankly.

DEAN: And just before I let you go, just a second thought on that. Just if, you're Iran or another foreign nation, who do you who are you talking to? Who are you trusting? Like, who do you think speaks for the United States?

MILLER: Overlapping lines of authority is going to be a problem. But I think the Iranians are actually quite nervous about the reality that Donald Trump is going to probably when it comes to Iran, make the major decisions. And I think its caught them off balance, which is one of the reasons I think they haven't responded yet to the Israeli strikes of October 26th.

I think they're scared, frankly. Now, whether or not Donald Trump can take advantage of that in order to what? Open a negotiating track is unclear. I worry greatly that we may be in for an Israeli-Iranian escalation sometime early next year.

DEAN: All right, Aaron David Miller, as always, good to see you.

MILLER: Thanks so for having me, Jessica.

DEAN: Michigan was key to President Biden's win in 2020. But now in 2024, President-elect Trump was able to crack the blue wall and win Michigan. We're going to check in with voters there, that's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:43:21]

DEAN: We're now 11 days past election day and a lot of Americans are still taking time to process the outcome. One key part of Trump's win coming from winning Michigan, where a large Arab-American population may have played a key role. And CNN's Danny Freeman has more on the main issues that influenced those voters.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

DANNY FREEMAN, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice over): In Dearborn, Michigan, the campaigns and the candidates have gone but the politics linger.

ALBERT ABBAS, VOTED FOR TRUMP: I think that the community is going to continue to be engaged and polarized.

FREEMAN (voice over) :In the final days of the race, Lebanese-American Albert Abbas welcomed former President Trump to his family's restaurant in Dearborn.

I, along with many others, truly appreciate that you made it a priority to visit Dearborn.

FREEMAN (voice over): Abbas agreed to host Trump only after he pledged to bring peace to Lebanon in the Middle East.

ABBAS: We're very optimistic and hopeful and quite frankly I'm excited about a second term of a Trump presidency.

FREEMAN (on camera): What was your reaction to some of these Cabinet announcements, you see someone like Mike Huckabee as Ambassador to Israel, someone like Elise Stefanik looking to go the UN, Marco Rubio all pretty hard line when it comes to the Middle East.

ABBAS: I'm not going to judge his appointees right now. We'll hold his feet to the fire once he's president.

FREEMAN (voice over): President-elect Trump won the state of Michigan by about 80,000 votes. In the majority Arab-American city of Dearborn, Trump won with 42 percent of the vote, while Vice President Harris only received 36 percent. Jill Stein, the Green Party protest choice of many anti-war voters got 18 percent of the vote here.

FREEMAN (on camera):What was the perception that you thought Donald Trump would be doing?

DALAL BAYDOUN, VOTED FOR THE GREEN PARTY: So as Donald Trump told us, he will stop the war. But now he's putting people in office that are with the war, practically.

[19:45:07]

FREEMAN (voice over): Dalal Baydoun voted for Jill Stein. She couldn't bring herself to vote for Vice President Harris because of the Biden administration's support for Israel. But she feels Trump has already squandered his goodwill in the Arab-American community.

FREEMAN (on camera): How do you feel about voting Green Party now?

BAYDOUN: I feel good that I don't have blood on my hands because, like I said, they're all with genocide. So, having to be not a part of all that makes me feel good.

FREEMAN (on camera): Do you regret not voting for Harris?

BAYDOUN: No because she's even worse.

FREEMAN (on camera): How are you feeling now that President-elect Trump won?

LEXIS ZEIDAN, CO-FOUNDER, UNCOMMITTED NATIONAL MOVEMENT: Yes, I'd say, definitely, a range of emotions. Disappointed is one. Angry is another.

FREEMAN (voice over): Lexis Zeidan is one of the leaders of the Uncommitted Movement and left the top of the ticket blank. She hears the criticism that voters like her helped elect Trump but rejects it, saying they wanted Harris to work with them.

ZEIDAN: You could have added every single vote in Dearborn and Kamala still would have lost. You could have added every single Jill Stein vote across the country, Kamala still would have lost.

And so this wasn't a referendum on Gaza policy. This election was not lost because of Gaza or because of uncommitted voters. What it showed you is that she not only was sidelining uncommitted in Arab and Muslim voters, but she was sidelining other communities of color as well.

FREEMAN (on camera): Do you have any regrets?

ZEIDAN: I have no regrets because what I did and you know what I believe uncommitted did in the last, you know, ten months is we did everything we could to offer the Democratic leadership something to save this democracy and to save Palestinian lives.

FREEMAN (voice over): Danny Freeman, CNN, Dearborn, Michigan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

DEAN: All right, Danny, thank you for that.

Weeks after he was ordered to do so, former New York Mayor and Trump ally Rudy Giuliani finally turning over some of his expensive assets to two Georgia election workers he defamed you're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:51:38]

DEAN: Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani finally turning over some of his assets, including some luxury watches and diamond ring and a 1980 convertible Mercedes Benz once owned by Lauren Bacall. But not all of his assets.

He still hasn't budged on four Yankees world series rings, a Manhattan apartment and a Palm Beach Condo. CNN's Gloria Pazmino joins us.

And Gloria, he has been forced by the courts to turn this over in order to pay these women, these two poll workers he defamed. What more can you tell us?

GLORIA PAZMINO, CNN CORRESPONDENT: That's right. You're talking about Shaye Moss and Ruby Freeman. And as you might remember, Jessica, they're the two women who sued Rudy Giuliani for defamation and now they are collecting on this payment $148 million after Rudy Giuliani accused them of tampering with the election in Georgia and trying to rig the election, which we now know is not true.

They successfully sued him and now they are trying to collect their payment. Now, yesterday, Friday was a crucial deadline for Rudy Giuliani, to start turning over some of these belongings including a luxury watch collection, a ring, a couple of bank accounts. And he had not done this. He had delayed for several weeks.

And finally, yesterday, we saw that, one of his assistants was actually finally shipping the watches. Now, this is only going to be a small amount towards the $148 million that he owes. And he is still trying to hold on to some other belongings, including a condo in Florida and he is still in the process of transferring his Manhattan apartment to the two women. Here's the other items that he has to turn over, including some sports memorabilia, some furniture, a television.

But Rudy Giuliani has spent a lot of time fighting this lawsuit; fighting its requirements and trying to delay. And we expect to see a lot more of that. In fact he's gone through a change of lawyers in the past few days. And the lawyers that he hired most recently are trying to argue that some of these items he should be allowed to hold on to.

DEAN: All right, more to come on this, Gloria Pazmino, thanks for that reporting.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM, we'll be right back.

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[19:58:46]

DEAN: Hey, look at New York here tonight. Catch an all new episode of "Have I Got News For You" with host, Roy Wood, Jr. and team captains Amber Ruffin and Michael Ian Black. Here's a preview.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ROY WOOD JR., "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU" HOST: In the wake of Kamala's loss, would have a lot of pundits said that the left is missing.

MICHAEL IAN BLACK, "HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU" TEAM CAPTAIN: I don't know, Roy.

WOOD, JR.: Play tape, let's hear it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I've seen some progressives talk about, you know, what would it take to recreate something like Joe Rogan on the left?

JESSE WATTERS, FOX NEWS CHANNEL HOST, "JESSE WATTERS PRIMETIME": They keep talking about they need to find their own Joe Rogan.

ANAND GIRIDHARADAS, MSNBC PUNDIT: We don't have the equivalent of Joe Rogan and Jordan Peterson to move that man in a feminist direction.

KATIE PAVLICH, FOX NEWS CHANNEL CONTRIBUTOR: They're desperate for their own Democrat version of Joe Rogan.

(END VIDEO CLIPS)

BLACK: I'm right here. I feel like I could be --

WOOD JR.: Look, you've got all credentials.

BLACK: Listen to me. I'm White, I'm an every man -- I mean, this shirt, it is from the Marc Anthony collection at Kohl's.

WOOD JR.: You could do it. BLACK: You don't think I could do it? I could do it. I can make Tim a feminist.

WOOD JR.: You got to get muscles, though. You got to get --

(END VIDEO CLIP)

DEAN: Be sure to tune in the new episode of "Have I Got News For You" airs tonight at nine Eastern and Pacific, right here on CNN.

Thanks so much for joining me this evening. I'm Jessica Dean. I'm going to see you again tomorrow night starting at five Eastern. "Real time" with Bill Maher is up next. Have a great night.

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