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Trump Finalizing His Candidates For Senate Confirmation; Interview With Representative Jake Auchincloss (D-MA); Scene Of Russian Ballistic Missile Strike In Dnipro; Navigating Thanksgiving With Relatives And Opposing Political Views; Hawaii Woman Vanishes After Missed Flight In Los Angeles; Checking With Trump Voters In Iowa After His Win. Aired 8-9p ET

Aired November 24, 2024 - 20:00   ET

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

[20:01:49]

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN ANCHOR: You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. I'm Kayla Tausche in Washington. Jessica Dean has the night off.

Republicans on Capitol Hill are bracing for a fight as some Senate lawmakers begin to pick apart Trump's more controversial cabinet picks including Pete Hegseth for secretary of Defense.

CNN's Alayna Treene is outside West Palm Beach, Florida, with more details -- Alayna.

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Kayla, it's clear that Donald Trump had moved very quickly to finalize his cabinet. He only has a few more names left to announce and now, really, the work is beginning on readying these different candidates for their Senate confirmation hearings.

Now, one person in particular that there has been a lot of controversy around is his selection to run the Pentagon, and that is Pete Hegseth. We know that Hegseth was on Capitol Hill last week meeting privately one-on-one with senators alongside the VP-elect J.D. Vance, to really hear what they needed from him and to assuage some of their concerns.

Now, one of the key things I would remind you of is that Hegseth was very quickly picked by Donald Trump. He had been called down to Mar-a- Lago. He interviewed with the president-elect, and then shortly thereafter Donald Trump announced that he was going to be his selection for the Department of Defense.

In between that time, there really wasn't a lot of time to do deep vetting on him and we know that members of Donald Trump's transition team were caught off guard by what was later released that week, a police report detailing sexual assault allegations against him.

Now, this is something we have heard many different members, many different senators weigh in on. I want you to take a listen to what some of them said this morning on the Sunday shows.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-IL): He does not have the experience to run an organization of that size. So just based on those requirements alone, he is unqualified for the position.

SEN. BILL HAGERTY (R-TN): Don't let these allegations distract us. What we need is real, significant change. The Pentagon has been more focused on pronouns than they have lethality in the past four years. We need to get back to business, and I think Pete is just the person to do it.

SEN. ERICK SCHMITT (R-MO): Ultimately this is a decision that President Trump made to bring in another disrupter, who's not been charged with anything.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TREENE: So clearly very different things coming from Democrats like Tammy Duckworth and also from Republicans like we heard from Hagerty and Schmitt. I mean, one thing I do want to point out as well is it's not just the sexual assault allegation that has troubled some people. From what I'm hearing in my conversations with Senate Republicans and Trump's transition team is they also need to do a job of assuring them that he is qualified for the role.

Now, one thing as well that Senator Schmitt pointed out that is true is that Donald Trump does want disrupters in these roles. He is choosing very unconventional people. There's no question about that. And part of that is because he believes that they will help break from traditional norms. They will get rid of what Donald Trump likes to call the so-called deep state, and really try to root out people who are not loyal to him, but also try to change really what we have seen these agencies do traditionally.

So there's a lot of questions that I think need to be answered, a lot of concerns that they need to continue to try and tamp down on Capitol Hill, but that is really what is going to be consuming the transition team between now and in January, when we're going to start to see some of these confirmation hearings take place -- Kayla.

[20:05:01]

TAUSCHE: Alayna Treene in West Palm Beach. Alayna, thank you.

Meanwhile, a top senator is calling it the worst telecom hack in American history. U.S. intelligence officials and America's top telecom officials meeting at the White House to discuss a Chinese cyber espionage campaign that may have spied on phone calls and text messages from top politicians, including President-elect Trump and Vice President-elect Vance. In a sign of mounting concern an all- senators' classified briefing is scheduled for after Congress returns from recess next month.

CNN's cybersecurity reporter Sean Lyngaas joins us now in Washington.

Sean, the campaign is considered so severe, the cyber espionage campaign, that President Biden brought it up with Chinese President Xi when the two met in Peru last weekend. And yet, according to his National Security adviser, Jake Sullivan, it doesn't sound like much if any progress was made.

SEAN LYNGAAS, CNN CYBERSECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Right, Kayla. This is a really thorny issue because if were being honest, U.S. intelligence agencies absolutely carry out this type of espionage against Chinese targets. However, the scale of what we're talking about in this case is really startling. Every major U.S. telecommunications provider, AT&T and Verizon, is believed to be targeted and, you know, certainly Biden is going to raise this with Xi Jinping. But it's more probably in the sense of we see what you're doing and, you know, it's not necessarily off limits, but it's not appreciated because this is -- we're talking about, as you said, potentially spying on the phone calls of President-elect Trump and his vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, as well.

And we know from our reporting, Kayla, that the Chinese hackers have also targeted the communications of Senator Schumer's office. So it is a bipartisan threat. And so the incoming administration is going to inherit this immense national security challenge. And it's not going away anytime soon. I mean, we don't even have any confirmation yet, Kayla, that they've actually evicted the hackers from the telecom networks. They're still trying to play a sort of cat and mouse game with getting them out and trying to keep them out.

So it's very much an ongoing investigation. I expect to report on more names in the coming weeks that have been targeted. So it's really all hands on deck. If you're a U.S. National Security official right now, even if you only have a few weeks to go before you're going to leave the administration.

TAUSCHE: Yes. U.S. national security challenges still present themselves, and we will see what, if anything, comes out of this all senators briefing.

Sean Lyngaas, we appreciate you staying up late with us tonight. Thank you so much.

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jake Auchincloss of Massachusetts.

Thank you so much for joining us, Congressman. First, I want to ask you about this Chinese cyberattack. I mean, one lawmaker calling it the worst telecom attack in American history. And as we just heard from Sean, these hackers are still in American systems.

Why is it so difficult to evict them? And what is the message that the U.S. needs to have for China?

REP. JAKE AUCHINCLOSS (D-MA): Good evening, Kayla. Thanks for having me on. I agree with Senator Warner. From the high level briefings that I have gotten this is the worst cyberattack against the United States that I am aware of. I think there's a number of reasons why it's so pernicious. The first is the sophistication that the Chinese brought to bear in how they accessed U.S. networks, and how they then used those placements to tap into high level officials' most sensitive conversations.

But I think the second is how brazen they were. Generally, when hackers are uncovered, they sort of retreat and my understanding is they have not been willing to do that. Even when they have been uncovered they have been asserting themselves within the networks. And that is unprecedented. So the United States needs to respond forcefully. This is not the only dimension on which the Chinese are being belligerent.

They're also exporting fentanyl to the United States. 97 percent of fentanyl precursors come from a few dozen Chinese manufacturers, killing 100,000 Americans every year. So we need real assertive strength at the negotiating table against the Chinese because they are upping the temperature in their belligerence.

TAUSCHE: And we know that the targets of these attacks have been bipartisan in nature. But there is an element that should be discussed that is transition related, which is that the Trump transition team has not signed the government memoranda that would allow them access to government facilities, government servers, government e-mail addresses, government phones that would provide more robust cybersecurity than perhaps what they are using right now.

It would also require more ethical and financial disclosures, which the team has resisted up until this point. But I'm curious what you think the transition needs to do at this point to safeguard their own technology, their own communication, and their own processes lest there be further national security risks that presents itself.

AUCHINCLOSS: Well, I'm not a cybersecurity expert on this front, so I can't give them precise instructions. I think a good start would be do what every single other transition in modern American history has done, which is sign up to an ethics agreement, agree to an FBI background check for your nominees, and have your nominees fill out detailed questionnaires so that senators and the American public know who is going to be fulfilling the public trust for the next four years.

[20:10:09]

TAUSCHE: You might not be a cybersecurity expert, but you do sit on the China Select Committee, which is why your expertise is especially relevant here, but I know you've also been vocal on some of these cabinet selections namely the selection of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services. You wrote a blistering op-ed in "The Boston Globe," and you said the Senate must reject Kennedy as health secretary.

You go into a litany of reasons why, but I'm wondering why you think the Senate on its own through its advise and consent process would not otherwise come to that conclusion on its own?

AUCHINCLOSS: Because of the last decade of evidence that congressional Republicans tend to huff and puff and then fold to Donald Trump, and this set of confirmation hearings is the most important chance that Senate Republicans have to demonstrate to Donald Trump that he is the president of a democracy. He is not coming in as the dictator of his own realm here. And this is what the founders envisioned.

They envisioned that there would be a power hungry president and that they would require Congress to supplicate themselves. And we need congressional Republicans to stand up for the Constitution and the country, not wholesale against every single one of his picks. Some of his picks are qualified. Senator Rubio, Mike Walsh. But some of his picks are manifestly unqualified, like Tulsi Gabbard and of course RFK.

And RFK touches the life and the health of all of my constituents. If you take Medicare benefits, if you look at the nutrition label on food that you're buying at the grocery store, if you want your kids to get a vaccine or drink public water, RFK is now your problem, too. And he is a conspiracy theorist and a quack who is trying to mask his dangerous agenda behind this handwaving about holistic health.

But just because he believes in healthier school lunches for kids does not make him some oracle of good health advice. What he believes fundamentally is that there is no such thing as a safe and effective vaccine. He does not think that AIDS is caused by a virus. He thinks high speed internet causes leaky vein syndrome. This is a guy who has no business pulling the levers of American health policy.

TAUSCHE: You know, I asked the same question to Dr. Ashish Jha earlier in our program. He was, of course, a senior Biden administration official leading the COVID-19 response effort in the later stages of the pandemic. But I think what is a question that does need to be asked is, you know, Donald Trump during his first term was the president who spearheaded Operation Warp Speed, which created the COVID vaccines and is now embracing a vaccine skeptic, many of his claims you just laid out, to lead a very prominent agency. Perhaps the linchpin of public health in this country.

And I'm wondering what you think has changed in the public discourse that has caused Trump to embrace a person like that after pursuing such vastly different policies during his first term.

AUCHINCLOSS: I'm not sure that this is actually a big break for Donald Trump ideologically. I don't think anybody would accuse Donald Trump of being into the weeds on policy on any given domain. I think he tends to follow what he feels like is the zeitgeist of popular culture and clearly RFK has tapped in to distrust of American institutions and anger against big food and big chemical manufacturers, much of it righteous.

And he is trying to now use that to his own advantage. And what I worry about is that RFK is going to fuse this personal brand that he has built around this anger with the organs of state to pump in disinformation to the American public realm. And that's not an academic concern. We saw what happened in Samoa in 2019 when RFK did that. 83 people died from measles, a preventable disease. Most of them were children.

Proportionately, there'd be more than 100,000 Americans should that happen here in the United States and we know how to stop that. It's vaccines. But RFK doesn't believe in them. TAUSCHE: Yes. I'm curious how your family background influences your

own views on this and what conversations are happening within some of those in those circles. I mean, for many who don't know, your mother, Laurie Glimcher, is a prominent physician, immunologist and a biotech board member. And I'm wondering what you're hearing from her about how some of those communities are preparing for this real possibility.

AUCHINCLOSS: One of the secrets to work-life balance for me is I actually really don't talk about politics with my parents or my family members, but I did grow up in a family of medical scientists. My father, my stepfather, my mother, as you indicated, and I was taught to take seriously evidence and to look at curiosity driven, peer- reviewed research as the gold standard that has given us cures to diseases that used to be dread diagnoses.

And what RFK seeks to do is instead of starting from a place of science, to start from a place of conspiracy, and while starting from a place of conspiracy might get you the right answer every once in a while like an ultra-processed foods, it's more often than not going to get you to the wrong answer with no ability to self-correct.

[20:15:01]

And the collateral damage there is going to be children. When this happened in Samoa, he called it a, quote, "natural experiment." What is he going to call it when it happens in the United States?

TAUSCHE: Well, there will certainly be a lot of discussion in the Senate on this very topic. It seems that they're focused on -- they were focused on Matt Gaetz. Perhaps now they're focused on Pete Hegseth. But over the coming weeks I imagine that there will be a very, very involved conversation on RFK's record. We will see how that turns out.

We appreciate you lending your voice to that conversation, Congressman Jake Auchincloss. Thank you for your time.

AUCHINCLOSS: Take care. Kayla.

TAUSCHE: Still ahead, a new look at the damage done by Russian President Vladimir Putin's new experimental ballistic missile. CNN is on the ground as rubble is still being picked up. Plus --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SHANEN EBERSOLE, IOWA VOTER: The vast majority of people who voted for Trump are not the far-right crazies. That is not who we are.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

TAUSCHE: How Republicans in Iowa who wanted to move away from Donald Trump are finding hope in his win. And how to handle family and politics when they collide at Thanksgiving dinner. We'll talk to a psychiatrist about those uncomfortable conversations.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:20:50]

TAUSCHE: The Trump administration will inherit two ongoing wars when the president-elect takes office in January, one in the Middle East, the other in Europe.

Ukrainian officials left reeling from an unfamiliar new missile launched from Russia this week. It's raising fears that escalating weaponry means an escalating conflict.

CNN's Nick Paton Walsh reports from on the ground in Dnipro, where the missile struck.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

NICK PATON WALSH, CNN CHIEF INTERNATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well, it was the dead of night here that people in the Dnipro saw the extraordinary scene on their skyline of that multi-warhead Russian missile experimental and according to U.S. officials, and here, a children's rehabilitation center, where some of the debris from the attack that night indeed landed. Children were here at the time. Still broken glass from the ground below me.

And really it's these vulnerable Ukrainians on the receiving end of the broader geopolitical message that Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to send. The parts of the debris of that missile on display to news agencies in Kyiv today. A select amount, clearly Kyiv trying to show the world exactly what technology was used against them. And there is, of course, going to be a lot of forensic attention as to exactly what those missile parts indeed show.

VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Experts are currently analyzing the evidence and working with our partners to establish all the details and the specifications of this missile, and to find a response together to this latest Russian escalation.

PATON WALSH: There appears to be a consensus this was a hypersonic missile and it was one with multiple warheads non-nuclear indeed. Vladimir Putin suggested that it can potentially get through all Western air defenses. And I'm sure that the parts on display will be pored over to see if, indeed, that provides any clues as to whether this is a technological leap by Russia or not. But still, here the message itself was very much more immediate and terrifying surely for those who saw multiple different fragments raining down on them from above. And the damage still here palpable in the freezing night.

Nick Paton Walsh, CNN, Dnipro, Ukraine.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAUSCHE: Coming up, Thanksgiving dinner should be more about turkey and stuffing and less about stress. How to handle uncomfortable conversations threatening to ruin your Thanksgiving holiday.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:27:33]

TAUSCHE: Many of you are bracing for Thanksgiving. Spending the holiday with family is supposed to be fun and filling, but let's be honest, it can also get tasty and frustrating. It could be even touchier this year coming off a divisive election with clashing political views.

So how do you handle those uncomfortable conversations?

Joining us now is Dr. Gail Saltz. She's a psychiatrist, psychoanalyst and associate professor of psychiatry at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Doctor Saltz, you describe what's happening as a national social regression. Explain what you mean.

DR. GAIL SALTZ, PSYCHIATRIST AND PSYCHOANALYST: I mean that many people are not having the tools right now to surmount the stress that they're feeling about all these things and have resorted to regression, meaning behavior that is very impulsive, very black and white, very you are good, you are evil, and are having a lot of difficulty taking a beat, having sort of a more mature response to what's going on. And that's causing a lot of explosions of a lot of relationships.

We're watching this being modeled by our leaders, but it's really happening to some degree to all of us. And the more we do it the more we do it.

TAUSCHE: And as Americans prepare to spend time with their families during Thanksgiving every four years, there has the potential for fraught political conversations at the family dinner table. But with the dynamic that you just laid out, how much more tense do you expect it to be? And do you believe that people have the coping skills to deal with that?

SALTZ: I think people are pretty tense right now, and so I think actually that it is going to be a difficult holiday season for a lot of families, for a lot of friends for a lot of colleagues because people feel so intensely about this and instead of sort of taking a step back and prioritizing their relationships, which is really what I'm advocating for, because let's face it, destroying your relationship over this will not help your political situation.

It will simply make you more stressed, more distressed, more regretful. So I think it's really important as we come into the holiday that everybody make a decision. You know what, my relationships really matter to me and they do. They matter. And I can prioritize that which doesn't mean giving up your ideas. It doesn't mean you have to change your political mind.

[20:30:03]

It means that you have to handle those thoughts within the relationship in a different way than you have been. And that can be everything from I'm going to remember to take a beat and say, hey, I heard you, or I listened to that, and I get what you're saying, but we just disagree and that's OK. You can switch the topic. You can decide before the holiday if it's really contentious and you know it to call that person up and say, I am so looking forward to seeing you and being with you.

And because I care so much about this relationship, let's not talk about politics. There are many ways that you can handle this but the most important umbrella is to say this relationship matters, blowing it up won't help me or the political situation. So I'm going to do what I can to take a moment, not attack people, not say, this means you're bad if you said X, but simply say, I hear you.

You know what, we disagree but that's OK. Let's talk about other things that we agree on more, and sort of use those coping tools to manage the relating.

TAUSCHE: You talk about calling a person ahead of time to try to smooth over that relationship before things become contentious. But what are some other tools, conversational tools or even behavioral tools that people can use on Thanksgiving Day, whether it's changing the seating arrangement or going for a walk, or refraining from drinking alcohol, for instance?

SALTZ: That's exactly right. I -- you know, the holidays, everybody likes to drink, but alcohol is a dis-inhibitor. So if I'm telling you, on the one hand, hey, you need to take a beat and not impulsively react, that's very hard to do if you've been drinking, for everybody. So limit the alcohol intake if you're expecting this kind of thing at the holiday. Think about who you're sitting next to each other at the table and don't put the people who are most likely to be having opposing views and exploded each other because it's happened before.

As I said, you can preempt some of this by deciding what are a couple of topics that I feel like I could bring up with these people that I care about, that feel safe and have them in your mind and have them on hand and ready. And if someone does get attacking, it's really OK to say, hey, you know what, let's wait a minute. I don't think this is going in a good direction for either of us. I really care about you, let's talk about -- I want to hear, how's your family doing? How's work going? Talk about something else.

So it is about giving yourself a moment, not reacting in the moment. Not vilifying whoever doesn't agree with you in hopes that they can do the same. And again, prioritizing. You'd like to come out of this, all of you, right, feeling like it was a nice holiday. You felt close with the people there. You have this ongoing relationship. So in that way, limiting the alcohol, arranging the seating, again calling ahead to smooth over or decide to disagree but not talk about it. These are all techniques to sort of take the temperature down on the room.

TAUSCHE: Well, I know that that is advice that many will be very happy to have in their pocket going into this week.

Dr. Gail Saltz, we wish you a very Happy Thanksgiving with your family. And we appreciate your time tonight.

SALTZ: Thank you. Happy Thanksgiving to you as well.

TAUSCHE: Thank you.

If you need a distraction, join CNN for the ultimate Thanksgiving morning watch party. There will be celebrity appearances and a live view of parades across the country. John Berman and Erica Hill host "THANKSGIVING IN AMERICA" starting at 8:00 a.m. Thanksgiving morning on CNN and streaming on Max.

We'll be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:38:33]

TAUSCHE: The family of a missing Hawaiian woman is pleading for any information that leads to her safe return. Hannah Kobayashi was expected to fly to New York, but she disappeared after a layover in Los Angeles, and strange text messages were sent from her phone. That was almost two weeks ago.

CNN's Veronica Miracle has the latest.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

LARIE PIDGEON, HANNAH KOBAYASHI'S AUNT: Please, please, please, do not stop saying her name.

VERONICA MIRACLE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Worried family and friends of a missing woman are asking anyone for help. Desperate in their search for Hannah Kobayashi.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: These little like postcards, these are to hand out to people.

MIRACLE: The 30-year-old from Hawaii disappeared November 11th. Surveillance images and bizarre texts are the only clues family members have.

PIDGEON: If someone has her, I want you to look at the pictures that we have posted. I want you to see this family, and I want you to know that she is so loved.

MIRACLE: Two weeks ago, Kobayashi flew from Maui to Los Angeles. She was supposed to go on to New York, but never made her connecting flight here at LAX. Family members say they have seen footage of her running to get to her gate, but missed the flight due to a tight 40- minute layover.

(Voice-over): For the next three days, family members say they were in touch with Hannah as she kept going back to LAX to try and book a new flight. Family members even spoke to an airline checking agent who spoke with Hannah.

PIDGEON: Basically, that she was just frustrated she was done. She wanted to get a direct flight to JFK.

[20:40:04]

She even talked about, you know, getting a direct flight to Maui like -- and they said unfortunately you have to book a brand new ticket, which is expensive.

MIRACLE: When she wasn't at LAX family members say she was spotted at a popular outdoor mall in Los Angeles. Two days in a row she was seen at the Grove, once in a bookstore, and another day she was caught on camera by a vlogger. She also posted a picture on Instagram from an event at the mall.

During the three days her phone was on. In addition to speaking with her family she was also in touch with friends. Some shared screenshots of texts from Kobayashi before she went silent. Mysterious messages like, "Deep hackers wiped my identity, stole all of my funds, and have had me on a mind (EXPLETIVE DELETED) since Friday," one message said.

"I got tricked pretty much into giving away all my funds," another text read, followed by one saying, "For someone I thought I loved." Family members say these text messages do not sound like the Hannah that they know and love.

Do you think that she is behind these text messages or do you think someone else is writing these texts?

PIDGEON: You know, there's two cases of scenarios. It's that someone has her phone that's writing the text. Someone is forcing her to write these texts, or she's, you know, she's not OK and she's writing these texts.

MIRACLE: The last place Hannah was seen was at this train station in downtown Los Angeles. Family members say they've seen footage of her on the train with someone they don't recognize, and leaving the train station with that same person. They've now posted fliers all over the area in hopes that someone recognizes Hannah.

(Voice-over): The LAPD now sharing this poster, seeking help in their search for Kobayashi.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Hannah, you are loved. You're missed. Yes. And we're here for you.

MIRACLE: Veronica Miracle, CNN, Los Angeles.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[20:46:37]

TAUSCHE: As Democrats try to forge a path to recovery after President- elect Trump's second victory, the party will have to grapple with why some voters, particularly women, felt uneasy with Trump but voted for him anyway. 2024 exit polls showed that Vice President Harris had an overall

eight-point advantage with women. In 2020, President Biden had a 15- point advantage.

CNN's John King talks to voters in a state that sets the tone very early in the American election cycle in his latest installment of his "All Over the Map" series.

(BEGIN VIDEO TAPE)

EBERSOLE: There's some right at the gate right now.

JOHN KING, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Shanen Ebersole loves her land and her cows rain or shine.

EBERSOLE: Sometimes if you want to play cowboy, you got to do cowboy things like standing in the rain.

KING: Her vote for Donald Trump, a vote to protect her way of life.

EBERSOLE: The vast majority of people who voted for Trump are not the far-right crazies. That is not who we are. We're simple Americans who want to live our lives and do our jobs and make our own choices in our own homes, and we want that for our neighbors who feel differently than us, too.

KING: You have to be an optimist to run a family cattle ranch. And Ebersole says she hopes Trump sees his mandate as the economy and the border. Hopes he understands a lot of his voters didn't like all that campaign talk about the enemy within and retribution.

EBERSOLE: We have spoken. We are not letting him be a bully, but we want him to stand firm.

KING: She is more bullish about Trump now than when we first met. Back then, Trump had competition in the Iowa caucuses, and Ebersole wanted a Republican who could be both president and role model.

EBERSOLE: He didn't bring us together because of the divisiveness, because of my liberal friends that were literally scared for their safety.

KING: But when Trump rolled to the nomination, Ebersole's choice was easy because of Biden-Harris farm and climate policies. Trump won 75 percent of the vote here in rural Ringgold County.

EBERSOLE: We felt as though Washington and the far edges of our country were governing the rest of Middle America.

BETSY SARCONE, IOWA VOTER: OK, come over here.

KING: Betsy Sarcone is another now proud Trump voter who initially wanted something very different.

So how did you get from I can't take it, I'll vote for Biden to --

SARCONE: Yes.

KING: -- I'm going to vote for Donald Trump and I'm actually relieved and happy about it?

SARCONE: I think I've come to the conclusion that I don't love Donald Trump as a person. But I do think that he is right for the country right now and that he is going to chart a different course than we're currently on.

KING (voice-over): Sarcone lives in the Des Moines suburbs, says her real estate business is slow, and she hopes Trump somehow helps. Lower grocery prices also high on her wish list.

SARCONE: I'm a mom, single mom, of three kids. So that does make a huge difference in my life.

KING: Sarcone finds some of Trump's cabinet picks disappointing, but she frames it this way. She could not support Vice President Harris, so now she thinks she has to be patient with a president-elect whose calling card is unpredictable.

SARCONE: The Kristi Noem, the Matt Gaetz, I'm not necessarily excited about it. I'm worried. I wouldn't say I'm worried. I voted for change as did the majority of the people, and that's what we're going to get. So I don't think worrying about it every day is going to do me any good.

KING: That Trump won the majority of the vote emboldens his most fervent supporters. People like Chris Mudd.

[20:50:04]

CHRIS MUDD, IOWA VOTER: And I think it's important that we round up every illegal and ship them out, and we have to come -- we have to figure out a way to get them back to work. I do believe that we do need immigration. A country needs immigration, it just needs to be legal.

KING: What would you say to Democrats who say that they are literally fearful? That they think that mass deportations are mean spirited or they think his ads about, you know, transgender Americans were mean? What would you say to them?

MUDD: I would say get over it. You know, there's -- I don't believe that there's anything to be scared of.

KING (voice-over): Mudd owns Midwest Solar, a startup that benefited from Biden clean energy incentives. His vote for Trump could hurt his business.

MUDD: It's possible, but like I've said, since I started talking to you, I sell value. I'm selling saving money. I'm not selling the green energy side of the business, I'm selling value.

KING: Some big solar jobs require parts made in China. But again, Mudd says Trump should go full steam ahead with trade tariffs. MUDD: Most of our stuff is tariff-free. So I want to see more products

and services get built in this country. I want to see our pharmaceuticals get produced here instead of in China. I think that we need an American economy that's building things, creating things.

KING: Trump's critics call it sloganeering, but the America First thing echoes in the small cities and rural outposts where Trump ran strongest.

EBERSOLE: Why are we bringing Argentinian beef in? Why are we bringing New Zealand and Australian beef in, and then exporting some of our beef? Why don't we first just feed our beef to our Americans?

KING: Maisie (PH) helps keep the cows on track in the pastures. Tia (PH) is a show cow. So grooming is an everyday chore.

EBERSOLE: Let me live my life in the middle of nowhere, where there's more cows than there are people. DoorDash isn't a thing. Pizza delivery is not a thing. You can't even get pizza delivered.

Hey, mamas.

KING: Ebersole's hope is that Trump changes a lot in Washington and leaves her happy place just as it is.

EBERSOLE: I just stand here and watch my cows and enjoy it.

KING: John King, CNN, Kellerton, Iowa.

EBERSOLE: It's my happy place.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

TAUSCHE: Our thanks to John King for that reporting.

Coming up on CNN NEWSROOM, a wild weekend in college football shaking up the top 10. Plus chaos after Arizona State fans rushed the field early. The referees left scrambling to regain control. What it means for the playoff race.

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

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[20:57:13]

TAUSCHE: New tonight a stunning upset for the reigning champs in women's college basketball. Top ranked South Carolina lost for the first time since April 2023. UCLA ending the team's 43-game win streak. And in college football, a wild weekend of upsets shaking up the top 10.

Don Riddell has more.

DON RIDDELL, CNN HOST, WORLD SPORT: Kayla, this is the first year of college football's 12-team playoff, and so far it's served up all of the drama and excitement that we were hoping for.

The Playoff Selection Committee will come out with their latest rankings on Tuesday, but we kind of got a sense of what it could look like when the AP poll came out earlier today. The top four remain the same, but Georgia moved up to sixth. Tennessee, Miami and SMU jumped several places as well, and Indiana fell all the way down to 10th after losing to second-ranked Ohio State.

For the first time in school history, the Hoosiers won their first 10 games, but they were humbled by the Buckeyes by 38 points to 15 in front of over 100,000 fans. After the game, Indiana's coach seemed pretty defiant when asked if he thought his team still belonged in the 12-team field.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

CURT CIGNETTI, INDIANA HEAD COACH: It's a serious question. I'm not even going to answer that one. The answer is so obvious. Thanks, guys.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RIDDELL: And he might be right after seeing some of the other results across the country. Alabama fell from seventh to 13th in the AP poll after a heavy defeat of Oklahoma. The Crimson Tide have lost three games in a season for the first time since 2010 and could now be in jeopardy of missing the playoff.

So could their conference rivals Ole Miss. The Rebels fell from ninth to 15th after losing at Florida. Quarterback Jaxson Dart threw interceptions on his team's final two drives as they also fell to eight in three for the season. Arizona State is now 14th after a dramatic win over BYU.

Fans rushed the field to celebrate the five-point victory, but the officials looked at the last play again and noticed that when the ball was thrown into the stands, a fan touched it with a second still left on the clock. So it took them about a quarter of an hour to get thousands of fans off the field and resume play.

BYU had one last chance to throw a 50-yard touchdown pass to win it but they couldn't make it. And so the students, why not? They rushed the field again. That's a huge win for the Sun Devils. And they now control their own destiny for the big 12 title game if they can win at Arizona on Saturday. Ohio State can clinch a spot in the big 10 title game against Oregon if they beat their arch rivals Michigan. And Texas, and Texas A&M will face off for a spot in the SEC title game. The winner of that will face Georgia.