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Jay-Z Pushes Back on Rape Allegations; Trump Holds News Conference. Aired 11:30a-12p ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 11:30   ET

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

[11:30:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN HOST: But they're in a different state. And it's not so easy to just fire a government employee who's been working with the government for years and years on end.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Right. Exactly.

BROWN: He also talked about the wall.

HOLMES: Right.

And it seems like he's talking about that still right now. We're hearing him talk about that here, as he's talking about how the Biden administration wants to sell parts of the wall, that they still want to continue building the wall.

Look, this is unsurprising. We also know that Tom Homan is going to be essentially running everything that he is doing with DHS in terms of immigration, was down at the border last week. He was touring the wall in various places, saying that they were going to rebuild it.

So this is unsurprising to me. This is one of the things that he ran on. And it is interesting to hear him. It sounds almost exactly like 2017...

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Right.

HOLMES: ... when he was talking about what the wall looks like. He's talking about the cement, the rebars.

BROWN: He's very granular.

(CROSSTALK)

HOLMES: Yes, exactly. But he clearly got a briefing on it recently.

BROWN: Yes. Yes.

HOLMES: So -- but it does sound a lot like 2017, talking about the immigration and what he wants to do right now. And I'm hearing him talk now. He's talking about drilling and the pipelines. That's one thing that we know that he wants to do.

Clearly, he's using this press conference. This is, I believe, his first press conference since he has -- since he won the office. He's using this as an opportunity to highlight all of the things that he said he was going to do that he still wants to do, but also he's doing it with this investment that we're seeing from SoftBank, so kind of using this as a propelling point to say, look, I'm already doing some of this stuff, as he inches closer to actually becoming the president of the United States.

BROWN: Right.

I want to go to Daniel Dale now to see if anything stuck out to you, Daniel.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: False claims we have heard before.

He repeated his frequent claim that there were no wars when he left office, clearly not true. One research group said there were about 50 active armed conflicts at the time. U.S. troops were still deployed on combat missions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria. We had ongoing civil wars in Syria, Somalia, Yemen, unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict, various insurgencies in other places in Africa.

Clearly not true. He said again, as he has before, that he built more wall than he said he was going to. Well, on that 2016 campaign, he repeatedly said he'd built about 1,000 miles. The actual total, according to official federal statistics, was 458 miles. And, again, he claimed here it was 571. No, it was 458.

And, critically, that includes more than 300 miles of replacement barrier. So, only about 60 of those miles were new primary barriers in places no barriers had existed before.

BROWN: All right, Daniel Dale, thanks so much.

We will be taking a quick break, and we will talk more on the other end.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:36:55]

BROWN: In just a few hours for now, a lawyer representing Jay-Z will address the media, as the music mogul fights rape allegations. The woman known as Jane Doe is now speaking out publicly and standing by her story.

Last week, she filed an amended complaint against Jay-Z and Sean "Diddy" Combs, accusing them of raping her when she was 13 years old at an award show after-party in 2000.

Joining us now is CNN reporter Lisa France.

So, tell us more Lisa. What is Jay-Z and his attorney saying about these accusations and the inconsistencies? LISA FRANCE, CNN SENIOR ENTERTAINMENT REPORTER: Well, they are

basically doubling down on Jay-Z saying he's absolutely innocent.

He said in a statement to us that: "The inconsistencies in what this alleged victim is saying should be proof to people that she's just merely out for money and fame," according to him.

So it appears that they are ready to fight. Jay-Z said initially, when he denied these accusations, these allegations, that he fights from a position of victory and truth and not for victory.

So he has been adamant that he did not do this. He's now appearing to just punch back and battle back to say that what this woman is not only -- what this woman is saying is not true, but also that, if you look at it, on the face of the allegations, there are so many inconsistencies that he believes that it points to his innocence, Pamela.

BROWN: What are some of the inconsistencies that they're pointing to?

FRANCE: Well, one of the main ones that was reported by NBC, who spoke with the Jane Doe, is that she claims that, after she was allegedly raped, she contacted her father to come pick her up. And her father told NBC that he does not remember that happening.

And so that would be a really big inconsistency. He said he has a lot going on, but he feels like that's something that he would have remembered had that happened. So that's a huge deal, especially for those who want to support Jay-Z and believe that this story cannot possibly be true.

And it seems like Jay-Z and his attorney, they're doing everything they can to convince people that this Jane Doe, what she's saying, this story, is completely made up and that he did not do it.

BROWN: And in the meantime, Jane Doe is standing by her allegations.

FRANCE: She absolutely is standing by her allegations strongly.

And she is acknowledging that there are inconsistencies, but she's saying that she's still telling the truth.

BROWN: All right, Lisa France, thank you so much.

FRANCE: Thank you.

BROWN: Coming up, meet one of 12 dogs on TSA's 2025 Canine Calendar. Whose sniffing skills are keeping airport travelers safe this holiday season?

You're in the CNN NEWSROOM.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[11:41:34]

BROWN: All right, president-elect Trump is taking questions at Mar-a- Lago. Let's listen.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

DONALD TRUMP, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES (R) AND CURRENT U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: And we will see.

As you know, I gave warning that if these hostages aren't back home by that date, all hell is going to break out, and very strong. But we generally just discussed -- I asked him, where are things? Mike Waltz is there, doing a great job, by the way. Everybody is very happy.

I think he's doing a fantastic job. But he was very much involved in the call. But it was a recap call more than anything else.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: ... stop the ban on TikTok next month?

TRUMP: Who?

QUESTION: How do you plan to stop the ban on TikTok next month?

TRUMP: We will take a look at TikTok. I have a warm spot in my heart for TikTok, because I won youth by 34 points. And there are those that say that TikTok had something to do with it.

Now, Joe Rogan did, and some of the other people that were recommended by my son Barron. He knew names, I said, who is that? Tell me, who's that dead? Dad, you have got to be kidding. I can't believe you don't know. And I did those interviews, and it was actually sort of cute, if you want to know the truth.

But we did them, and that had an impact. But TikTok had an impact. And so we're taking a look at it. But we won youth. Republicans are always 30 points down in youth. I don't know why, but we ended up finishing, we were -- there was one poll that showed us down about 30. We were 35 or 36 points up with young people.

So I have a little bit of a warm spot in my heart, I will be honest.

Yes.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Are you entertaining the idea of preemptive strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities?

TRUMP: Against who?

QUESTION: Against Iran's nuclear facilities.

TRUMP: Well, I couldn't tell you that. Would you -- I mean, it's a wonderful question, but how can I -- am I going to do preemptive strikes? Why would I say that?

Can you imagine if I said yes or no? You would say, that was strange that he answered that question. Am I going to do preemptive strikes on Iran? Is that a serious question? How could I answer a question like that?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Say it?

QUESTION: Would you be in support of Israeli strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities?

TRUMP: How could I tell you a thing like that now? It's just so -- you don't talk about that before something may or may not happen.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't want to insult you. I just think it's just not something that I would ever answer having to do with there or any other place in the world.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Can I ask just clearly, do you believe there's a connection between vaccines and autism? Do you believe there's...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, I don't -- look, right now, you have some very brilliant people looking at it. I had dinner the other night with the head of Pfizer, the head of Eli Lilly, and RFK, as you know, and Oz. And we had other people within the administration that are involved in the medical.

And we're looking to find out. If you look at autism -- so, 30 years ago, we had -- I have heard numbers of like one in 200,000, one in 100,000. And now I'm hearing numbers of one in 100. So something's wrong. There's something wrong.

And we're going to find out about it.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Can I get follow on Robert Kennedy?

He's on the Hill today. He's meeting with senators. What do you say to people who are worried that his views on vaccines will translate into policies that will make their kids less safe?

[11:45:08]

TRUMP: No, I think he's going to be much less radical than you would think. I think he's got a very open mind, or I wouldn't have put him there. He's going to be very much less radical.

But there are problems. I mean, we don't do as well as a lot of other nations, and those nations use nothing. And we're going to find out what those problems are. And another thing that came up, the dinner was fascinating, because I had Bobby, and I had, again, the head of Pfizer. You know who that is.

He's a highly respected man who has run an incredible company, likewise with Lilly, the top two people. And we had the head of the industry also. So all companies were represented. And I said, let's have it out now a little bit.

And you know what came out of that meeting is that we're paying far too much, because we're paying much more than other countries. And we have laws that make it impossible to reduce. And we have a thing called the middleman. You know the middleman, right, the horrible middleman that makes more money, frankly, than the drug companies.

And they don't do anything except they're a middleman. We're going to knock out the middleman. I'm going to be very unpopular after that statement.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I don't know who these middlemen are, but they are rich as well. And we're going to knock out the middlemen. And we're going to get drug costs down at levels that nobody has ever seen before.

And that really -- I tell you, we spent more time talking about that with Bobby and with the executives and Oz, all of them. We spent more time talking about that than anything e

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: President Trump, what about the polio vaccine?

TRUMP: Well, I'm a big believer in it. And I think everything should be looked at, but I'm a big believer in the polio vaccine, the Salk vaccine.

QUESTION: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines? Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?

TRUMP: I don't like mandates. I'm not a big mandate person. So I was against mandates. Mostly Democrat governors did the mandates and they did a very poor thing. In retrospect, they made a big mistake having to do with the education of children.

They lost like a year or two years of their lives. The mandate was a bad thing. I was against the mandate.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Yes, please.

QUESTION: Do you expect Ron DeSantis to appoint Lara Trump to Senator Marco Rubio's seat?

TRUMP: No, I don't. I probably don't, but I don't know. Ron is doing a good job. That's his choice. Nothing to do with me.

Lara's unbelievable. I mean, she was incredible, the job she did at the RNC, chairman along with Michael Whatley, the combination. But I can just speak for Lara. She is so highly respected by women. I mean, even her workout routines are through the roof. She lifts 150 pounds.

I don't know how the hell she does it. She's a bad example for men and women's sports, because I wouldn't be able to beat her, I don't believe. I'd try like hell. But, no, she's an incredible woman.

And it's funny. People oftentimes talk about nepotism. I never had -- when I put her there, people said, how did you get her to do it? She could have run for the Senate in North Carolina, Ted Budd would be the first to say, and he wouldn't have run. Nobody would have run. And she just said, no, I want to really focus on my children.

When the election -- and my family. She has a great family. When the election started getting closer, I asked her, would she go to Washington and work on the -- as chairman of the committee along with Michael Whatley?

And they did such an unbelievable job, especially on cheating. They stopped it, or at least they stymied it. Too big to rig. And we won in the landslide. We won tremendously. She did an amazing job.

Now Ron is going to have to make -- because Marco has been really a star already. And we haven't started, but we see signs of -- from some people very early, we see signs of stardom. And Marco has done incredibly. He's sort of born for it.

It was such an easy decision. The Marco decision was such an easy -- but he leaves a vacancy in Florida, and Ron is going to have to make that decision. And he will make the right decision. I also know that Lara's got so many other things. I mean, she's got so many other things. People want her to be on television. They want to give her contracts.

Her predominant thought is our country and her family. Those are her thoughts. But she's got so many other things that she's talking about. He will make the right decision.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Should senators who oppose your nominees, your Cabinet nominees, should they be primaried?

TRUMP: If they are unreasonable. I will give you a different answer, an answer that you will be shocked to hear.

[11:50:03]

If they're unreasonable, if they're opposing somebody for political reasons or stupid reasons, I would say it has nothing to do with me. I would say they probably would be primaried.

But if they're reasonable, fair, and really disagree with something or somebody, I could see that happening. But I do believe that, if they're unreasonable -- I think we have great people. I think we have a great group of people. Pam has been unbelievably received. You take a look, Pam Bondi.

So many have been just unbelievably received. I think Pete Hegseth is making tremendous strides over the last week. He's going to be great. Look, he went to Princeton. He went to Harvard. He was a great student there. But he really was -- from the first day I met him, all he wanted to talk about was military. He's just a military guy.

I think it's a natural. This was my idea. And Pete Hegseth gave up a lot, because he was going big places in FOX, big, big places, a lot of money. And he didn't even hesitate. When I said, do you want to do this, he said, absolutely.

I said, if it doesn't work out, you will never have the opportunity that you have right now in terms of the world of entertainment or business, whatever you want to call it. You will never have that opportunity again. In fact, it could be just the opposite, because it's nasty out there. He said, I don't care. I have to do it for my country.

He gave up a tremendous amount. If this didn't work, it would be a tragedy, because -- but that's what he loves. He loves the military. I never talked to him about anything else. He'd talk about the military. He'd come to see me about a soldier that was unfairly treated, and could I help?

That's the only thing I virtually ever talked to him about. And I always remembered it. I have seen him many times. And I don't think I have ever had a subject on anything other than military with him. That's where his love is. And he didn't say, well, I'd like to think about it. I'd like to talk to my family.

He said, not even a contest. And he was going through the roof over there. He was doing great. They have the number one show that Saturday and Sunday with Will and Rachel. That's a -- that was great chemistry. And if this didn't work out for him, it would be actually sort of tragic.

Yes.

QUESTION: Would you considering pardoning Eric Adams?

TRUMP: Yes, well, I think that he was treated pretty unfairly. Now, I haven't seen the gravity of it all, but it seems like being upgraded in an airplane many years ago. It's -- I know probably everybody here has been upgraded. They see you're all stars, and they say, I want to upgrade that person from NBC.

I'm going to upgrade him. And that would mean you will spend the rest of your life in prison. I don't know. Somehow, I would get -- I mean, I'd have to see it, because I don't know the facts. I think he was treated -- it's very interesting.

When -- he essentially went against what was happening with the migrants coming in, and he made some pretty strong statements like, this is not sustainable. I said, you know what? He will be indicted soon. And I said it not as a prediction, a little bit lightheartedly, but I said it. I said, he's going to be indicted.

And a few months later, he got indicted. So, yes, I would certainly look at it.

QUESTION: Mr. President, can I ask you a question about on drones?

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

TRUMP: We had 5,000 troops along the border. And I asked a couple of generals.

So we have an army of 250,000 in Syria, and you had an army of 400,000. They have many more people than that. Turkey is a major force, by the way. And Erdogan is somebody I got along with great, but he has a major military force. And his has not been worn out with war. It hasn't been worn out with all of the other -- I mean, he's built a very strong, powerful army.

And so we have 5,000 soldiers in between a five million-person army and a 250,000-person army. And I asked a general, what do you think of that situation? He said, they will be just -- they will be wiped out immediately. And I moved them out, because -- and I took a lot of heat.

And you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing. I saved a lot of lives. Now we have 900. They put some back. But 900, if you're talking about two -- now, one of the sides has been essentially wiped out, but nobody knows who the other side is. But I do. You know who it is? Turkey. OK? Turkey is the one behind it.

He's a very smart guy. They have wanted it for thousands of years, and he got it. And those people that went in are controlled by Turkey. And that's OK. It's another way to fight.

But, no, I don't think that I want to have our soldiers killed. But I don't think that will happen now anyway, because the one side has been decimated.

[11:55:05]

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

TRUMP: Well, nobody knows what the final outcome is going to be in the region. Nobody knows who really the final -- I believe it's Turkey, and I think Turkey is very smart.

He's a very smart guy, and he's very tough. But Turkey did an unfriendly takeover without a lot of lives being lost. I can say that Assad was a butcher here, what he did to children. You remember, I attacked him with the 58 missiles, unbelievable missiles coming from ships 700 miles away, and every one of them hit their target.

But I did that. That was the red line in the sand. Obama drew it, and then he refused to honor what he did. He said, if anybody goes across the red line, and Assad killed many more children after that, and Obama did nothing, but I did. I hit him with a lot of missiles. In fact, President Xi was sitting here the night -- he was in that

dining room having chocolate cake. Remember the famous chocolate cake? But -- and that's when I explained what we were doing as the missiles were shot. And it was amazing as to precision, because every one of those missiles hit its target from a long distance.

Had President Obama drawn the line and where it meant something, you wouldn't have even had Russia there. But in the end, I never understood why Russia went there. They were not getting very much out of it. But now their time is taken up with Ukraine, and we'd like to get them to stop on Ukraine and Ukraine stop also.

As you know, when I went to the cathedral, which was fantastic, the job that they have done in France and the job that Macron,Emmanuel did, he did a phenomenal job on the rebuilding of that cathedral. It's magnificent, and they did a great thing. And they had great respect for our country. They treated me, meaning I'm the country -- I'm the representative of our country.

And we were treated with great respect. And one of the people that came to pay his respects is, as you know, Ukraine, Zelenskyy. And he would like to have peace. He wants peace. Everyone is being killed. It's the worst carnage that this world has seen since World War II.

I have had pictures of fields where bodies are lying on top of bodies. Looks like the old pictures of the Civil War, where just bodies are all over. Just -- if you saw those pictures, you would feel more strongly about it. It's got to stop. And we're trying to get it to stop.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Well, we're going to see. We're going to be talking -- we will be talking to President Putin and we will be talking to the representatives, Zelenskyy and representatives from Ukraine.

We have got to stop it. It's carnage.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Thank you. Good to see you. Good to see you.

QUESTION: Can you comment on the drones that are flying around in New Jersey ports? It seems like the American people have a big...

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: The government knows what is happening. Look, our military knows where they took off from. If it's a garage, they can go right into that garage. They know where it came from and where it went.

And for some reason, they don't want to comment. And I think they'd be better off saying what it is. Our military knows and our president knows. And for some reason, they want to keep people in suspense. I can't imagine it's the enemy, because, if it was the enemy, they would blast it out. Even if they were late, they would blast it. Something strange is going on. For some reason, they don't want to tell the people. And they should, because the people are really -- I mean, they happen to be over Bedminster, want to know the truth.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: They're very close to Bedminster. I think maybe I won't spend the weekend in Bedminster. I have decided to cancel my trip.

QUESTION: Have you received an intelligence briefing on the drones?

TRUMP: I don't want to comment on that.

(CROSSTALK)

QUESTION: Two quick questions. First, on vaccines, do you want RFK Jr. to revoke any vaccines?

TRUMP: No, I want him to come back with a report as to what he thinks. We're going to find out a lot.

We're doing two things. We're going to have tremendous cost savings that will come out of this. That's a minimum. And we're also going to have, and I think very serious discussions about certain things, whether it's pesticides. Europe doesn't use pesticides. And yet they have a better mortality rate than we do. They don't use pesticides.

In fact, they use it as an excuse not to take our farm product. We spend billions and billions of dollars on pesticides. And something bad is happening. Again, you take a look at autism today versus 20, 25 years ago, it's, like, not even believable.

So we're going to have reports. No, nothing is going to happen very quickly.