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Holiday Travel Forecast; Trump's Health Sector Nominations; Russia's Hypersonic Missile. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired November 25, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:54]

JIM ACOSTA, CNN HOST: Russia today is doubling down on threats to keep using its new hypersonic missile.

The deputy foreign minister says they will use every means to protect the country's security. Russia hit Ukraine's Dnipro region last week with a non-nuclear hypersonic weapon. And just this weekend, Ukraine says it repelled a widespread attack involving more than 70 drones.

Colonel Leighton is with us now. Always great to have you on the program, CNN military analyst.

Colonel Leighton, what are your thoughts when you see the use of this kind of a missile? I mean, I have to think that this is not just concerning the Ukrainians, but all of Europe.

COL. CEDRIC LEIGHTON (RET.), CNN MILITARY ANALYST: Yes, absolutely, Jim.

And that's one of the key issues with this. When we saw that video, it showed multiple blasts. And what that represented was the multiple reentry vehicles that this particular missile has. So it is an escalation. It is a key element in the Russian effort to not only warn us and the Ukrainians of their capabilities, but also to kind of put out a response to the ATACMS missiles that President Biden has now allowed the Ukrainians to use against Russian targets.

ACOSTA: And you do interpret this as an escalation on Russia's part to essentially respond to the use of those ATACMS?

LEIGHTON: Absolutely.

ACOSTA: Yes.

LEIGHTON: Now, here's one big thing to keep in mind, though, Jim. The very fact that they're using what they themselves are calling an experimental missile shows that they have very little in their arsenal, except for nuclear weapons.

So, this is a missile that can both have a conventional warhead, which they used in the Dnipro attack, or it could have a nuclear warhead if they chose to put one on there. So it's capable of both. And one of the things the Russians did before they launched this missile was to alert the United States that this was going to be launched, so that we wouldn't mistake it for nuclear launch.

ACOSTA: So, that sends a message in and of itself, right, that right there.

LEIGHTON: Absolutely.

ACOSTA: And Trump's pick for national security adviser, Congressman Mike Waltz, said this weekend there was no daylight between himself and current National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan on major issues.

Let's listen to this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE WALTZ (R-FL): Jake Sullivan and I have had discussions. We have met. For our adversaries out there that think this is a time of opportunity, that they can play one administration off the other, they're wrong. And we are hand in glove. We are one team with the United States in this transition.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: What do you make of that? That's very interesting. And it almost sounds as though the congressman is trying to make a distinction between himself, draw a difference between himself and the national security adviser for Trump's first administration, Mike Flynn.

I mean, there's a whole controversy there for conversations with the Russians during that period, the interregnum period between election and inauguration.

LEIGHTON: Yes, that's right, Jim.

And I think one of the key things here is that, in essence, Congressman Waltz is getting into a more traditional approach to the U.S. transition. And it was actually a very necessary message for the future national security adviser to announce to the world that...

ACOSTA: Yes, don't pull any fast ones.

LEIGHTON: Don't pull any fast ones.

We are basically going to continue, at least for now, the same types of policies that the Biden administration has been conducting in places like Ukraine.

ACOSTA: But it's a little strange, because Donald Trump is -- was out there promising on the campaign trail that when he comes into office, he's going to end the war in Ukraine.

LEIGHTON: Well...

ACOSTA: I mean, they're not really on the same page when it comes to major issues.

LEIGHTON: At least when it comes to campaign rhetoric.

ACOSTA: Yes.

LEIGHTON: That's absolutely right. So there are some things to watch out for.

Is president-elect Trump going to follow his campaign rhetoric? Or is he going to have a more rational, pragmatic approach to foreign policy issues? Is he going to take the interests of the United States, strategic interests of the United States, and make them the forefront of his efforts?

Or is he going to do things in a more ad hoc fashion, as indicated by his campaign rhetoric? That remains to be seen. If he does the latter, we're in trouble. If he does the former, there's a chance that continuity will help Ukraine survive this. And that's going to be, I think, the major test for his administration, at least in the first few months of it.

[11:35:03]

ACOSTA: All right. We know you will be watching it closely.

Colonel Leighton, as always, thank you so much. Really appreciate it.

Still ahead: New reports reveal that president-elect Trump has not yet agreed to disclose the donors involved in his transition to the White House. We will discuss the significance of that next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ACOSTA: We're seeing a flurry of nominations in public health by president-elect Donald Trump before the holiday, including leaders for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Food and Drug Administration, and the U.S. surgeon general.

To help us get through some of these names and what they're all about, I'm joined by CNN medical analyst Dr. Jonathan Reiner.

Dr. Reiner, good to see you, as always.

Let's start with the announcement of Dr. Marty Makary for FDA commissioner. This is the agency that controls the safety and efficacy of medications, as well as vaccine authorizations. Dr. Makary penned an opinion piece in 2021 about how COVID showed the agency is -- quote -- "mired in red tape and politics."

[11:40:20]

What do you make? I mean, it's not just RFK Jr., who has been a vaccine denier and skeptic, over at HHS that Trump wants there, but some of these other very important positions, you have people who have taken very strident views or voiced very strident views about how COVID was handled. Your thoughts?

DR. JONATHAN REINER, CNN MEDICAL ANALYST: So the president-elect told us what he was going to do. He told us he was going to let RFK Jr. go wild on health.

And that's exactly what he's doing, go wild on health, go wild on medicines. And RFK Jr. has told us now for decades what he's about. So Dr. Makary is a Johns Hopkins surgeon. A good part of his career, he has spent time talking about the economics of medicine, the cost of health care, safety in the operating room, things like this.

But during the pandemic, he became sort of a COVID contrarian. He's not anti -- he's actually not anti-vax. He was a critic of mandatory vaccination. He was a critic of boosters. He placed a lot of emphasis on natural immunity. He penned another opinion piece in "The Wall Street Journal" in March of 2021 saying that basically we would have heard immunity by April 1, which obviously didn't happen.

And, interestingly enough, he's been a critic of the FDA. He has said it takes too long for the FDA to approve vaccines. And, famously, during the pandemic, he said that it should really have only taken the FDA 24 to 48 hours to approve the COVID vaccine.

So that's an interesting parallel with sort of the opposite view of RFK Jr., who says that the COVID vaccine was the most deadly vaccine ever developed. But, recently, he's become an ally of Mr. Kennedy in terms of Kennedy's feelings about looking at chronic diseases, evaluating the safety of food and such in the United States.

ACOSTA: Yes.

REINER: And I think the kind of contrarian view is what really has attracted Kennedy to him.

ACOSTA: Yes, I mean, if you're concerned about the speed of vaccine approval, I mean, Operation Warp Speed was one of -- I mean, you could argue, was one of the achievements of the Trump administration, the way it got those vaccines out to the public as quickly as they did, which, I mean, very likely saved maybe hundreds of thousands of lives.

And, Dr. Reiner, I want to ask you. Let's turn to the role of surgeon general. Trump has nominated Dr. Janette Nesheiwat. Forgive me if I'm pronouncing some of these names -- they're so early in the process, but you're a public health expert. Maybe you know how to say your name, but Trump has nominated her for the post.

She's a family practice doctor, FOX News, medical contributor who's been supportive of vaccines, including the COVID one. As you know, surgeon general is kind of referred to as the nation's doctor. What do you make of this pick and how it fits into these public health picks that we're seeing the president-elect put out there?

REINER: Right, so I think these picks really show you that they're choosing either allies of RFK Jr. for these health posts or allies of the president.

And I think Dr. Nesheiwat is the least controversial of his health picks. As you say, she's a family practice doc. She works at CityMD in New York, and she's a frequent -- she has -- she's a frequent commentator on FOX News. And she's a pretty good communicator. And I think that's a big role of

the surgeon general. The other role of the surgeon general is to basically lead the 6,000-person uniformed public health service, which she won't have much experience for.

But the big public role, I think she could probably be OK in terms of communicating issues important to the health of this country to the public.

ACOSTA: All right, Dr. Reiner, as always, we appreciate it. Thanks so much.

REINER: My pleasure.

ACOSTA: All right, Donald Trump is breaking with tradition and not disclosing the donors behind his second-term transition.

According to "The New York Times," the president-elect is keeping the names of those funding his transition a secret right now, which could make it impossible to see what people, interest groups, or businesses are helping launch his return to the White House.

Let's bring in Democratic strategist Chuck Rocha and Lance Trover, the former spokesperson for North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum's 2024 presidential campaign.

Chuck, let me start with you first.

I mean, you have this issue of keeping the donor secret in terms of people paying for the transition. You have the transition not wanting to do FBI background checks on certain picks. What does this add up for you?

[11:45:04]

CHUCK ROCHA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: I think that people -- and it's fair to say that folks voted for a nontraditional politician, but they didn't vote for this in every focus group that I was in.

And I went back and looked at a little research when I got a heads-up on the topic today to look at who had actually done this before and who had disclosed their donors. I was really surprised to see that, in '08, when Obama got in, not only did he publicly disclose. He banned lobbyists, he banned unions, and he banned business groups to show no interest from anybody except the American people, and took like 40,000 grassroots donations to fund his inauguration.

I think that's what we want to see. I was also shocked to find out this morning that it is not illegal for a foreign government to fund your inauguration, but you should be disclosing that.

ACOSTA: Yes, Lance, what do you make of all that? I mean, wouldn't we know who's funding the inauguration and transition? I mean...

LANCE TROVER, FORMER BURGUM PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SPOKESPERSON: Yes, I think it's a fair question to ask, but, look, my reading of the story that came out this morning, the transition co-chairs have indicated that they're going to sign the documents to move forward. They just haven't done it yet.

And I think that's part of the problem here is there's a bit of fearmongering to me that's going on. They haven't said they're not going to do the FBI background checks. And, look, we have -- he has moved at a warp speed to get these nominations out. And I think we need to get -- look, the CBS poll this morning or over the weekend came out and said that nearly 60 percent of this country is happy with how this transition is going.

It's clear that the voters are giving the Trump transition some latitude. And I think we need to as well.

ACOSTA: And Georgia Republican devout Trump loyalist Marjorie Taylor Greene has been tapped to chair a new oversight subcommittee that will work with Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy's DOGE, as they call it, the Department of Government Efficiency, which is not going to be an actual department of the government.

Apparently, it's an advisory panel to make massive -- to make recommendations on massive government cuts. Let's listen to what she had to say over the weekend.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE (R-GA): We will be looking at everything from government-funded media programs like NPR that spread nothing but Democrat propaganda. We will be going into grant programs that fund things like sex apps in Malaysia, toilets in Africa, all kinds of programs that don't help the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ACOSTA: Chuck, I'm just taking a stab at this here, but it doesn't sound like toilets in Africa, that's going to cut a whole lot out of the federal budget.

ROCHA: No, and it would not at all.

And, again, this is what we say in the country is G&C, which is good and crazy. Look, there's nothing wrong with making your government more efficient. I'm all about making things more efficient, especially in government. I think that's the middle ground that we can all agree on.

But you can't put folks like Marjorie Taylor Greene in front of something like this. You need to have people that are serious about it. Let's figure out a way to get old folks' Social Security checks more easily, make it easier for folks, especially old folks, to file taxes. Those kind of things, as a Democrat, I'm like, look, I will meet you halfway. Let's figure this out.

But what she just said don't make no sense.

ACOSTA: Lance, does that make any sense to you? TROVER: I don't know of a presidential candidate certainly in my

lifetime that was more clear with voters about what they were going to do than Donald Trump.

He made it very clear from many months out that Elon Musk was going to share some kind of committee and go after government waste. And I think the voters spoke very clearly three weeks ago in saying they are on board with that. So I say all hands on deck, do whatever we need to do.

ACOSTA: Can you balance the budget by cutting toilet seats to Africa?

TROVER: I don't know about toilet seats in Africa, but I'm pretty certain that the voters of this country are ready to cut some of the waste and fraud that's gone on in this government.

ACOSTA: Yes.

TROVER: There's no doubt about that. Donald Trump has been on that run for eight years.

ACOSTA: And throughout his campaign, I mean, Trump heavily distanced himself from Project 2025. Several of his Cabinet picks, though, Lance, I mean, they come right out of Project 2025, including his new pick for the Office of Management and Budget, who basically wrote Project 2025.

I know I ask this. I have been asking this over and over again and maybe someday I will give it up. But that was all hogwash, to borrow maybe a word that Chuck would use.

ROCHA: I would use that. Go ahead, Lance.

ACOSTA: That Donald Trump said he had nothing to do with Project 2025, that was not true, right?

TROVER: Well, it's not -- he's not staffing the entire administration with Project 2025 people.

Are there people who are tied to it? Yes, they have 4,000, 5,000 people that they need to put into this administration. But, again, I go back to I don't think there's a voter out there that's sitting there really super concerned that, oh, gosh, he appointed somebody that was from Project 2025.

So, again, 60 percent of this country says right now they are happy with how this transition is going. And I think we all should give him a little latitude as we're just three weeks out of this election.

ACOSTA: Chuck.

ROCHA: Democrats, you have a chance now. It's called distinguish, contour, contrast. This is what we should be doing. He said one thing. He did a number. The midterms start right now.

ACOSTA: All right. Well, we will see. It is early going, but it is coming.

All right, Chuck and Lance, guys, thanks a lot.

We will be right back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:53:48]

ACOSTA: Eighty million Americans are expected to travel this week, but major storms across the country could threaten those plans as people try to make it home for Thanksgiving.

Derek Van Dam joins us now.

Derek, I was taking a peek at the forecast for later this week and it does not look good, especially on Thanksgiving. It is going to be a mess.

DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It is going to be a mess.

ACOSTA: Yes.

VAN DAM: We have got to pack our patience today, I think, and this entire week, Jim.

We have got storm system lining up after storm system. So it's going to sweep from West to East Coast. I will show you the evolution in just one moment. This is kind of our current setup. So you can see things are fine along the Eastern Seaboard now. That will change into tomorrow morning.

The Upper Midwest, that area is getting impacted by some rain and high elevation snowfall, or at least I should say across the northern tiers. This is the major storm that's going to send kind of weather ripples across the country. And we have got to really keep a close eye on this storm system as it overspreads heavy mountain snows to places like Denver and westward towards Salt Lake City.

Tomorrow morning, one of the busiest travel days of the year, there will be rainfall along the I-95 Corridor with some high-elevation snowfall in Northern New England. And once that system exits the East Coast, we focus all of our attention Wednesday and into Thanksgiving Day, that of course being Thursday.

[11:55:00]

Look at how the system kind of explodes in size, a lot of rainfall. The latest computer models show this is a rain, a cool rain, I should say, along the major East Coast cities, Boston, New York to D.C. and Philly, southward into Atlanta.

But any shift in the guidance on this north or south was meaning a difference in the snow that we can expect from this system. We do anticipate snow, though, for Northern New England, so places like Buffalo. And we could see the lake-effect snow machine really kick into high gear here once the system passes.

This is the rainfall and snow accumulation. Lots of blues on this map, lots of whites, indicating a very active weather pattern. If you're one of the millions of Americans hitting the skies today, no problems on the East Coast, but look at the West Coast and how things evolve into tomorrow.

We could see moderate to minor delays because of the weather, thanks to that incoming storm system, but all fine from Chicago into Detroit. And then this is the other major thing you want to take home from this, because you want to pack for two different seasons if you're heading to family or friends.

You will start off in a very warm fall pattern, but then end off the week in a very wintry-like temperature pattern for the East Coast -- Jim.

ACOSTA: That looks very chilly.

All right, Derek Van Dam, thanks for the warning, although I did notice maybe for skiers that doesn't look too bad out West, so maybe...

VAN DAM: I'm OK with that.

ACOSTA: Keep your hopes alive there.

VAN DAM: Take it from me.

(LAUGHTER)

ACOSTA: All right, Derek Van Dam, thanks a lot. Really appreciate it.

VAN DAM: All right.

ACOSTA: And a reminder to join CNN for the ultimate Thanksgiving morning watch party featuring celebrity appearances and a live view of parades across the country.

Thanksgiving in America starts 8:00 a.m. Thursday right here on CNN and streaming on Max.

Thank you very much for joining me this morning. You had two hours with me this morning. That's going to happen a lot this week. I'm Jim Acosta.

Stay with us. "INSIDE POLITICS" with Manu Raju starts after a short break. Have a good day.