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Johnson Re-Elected House Speaker After Dramatic Vote; Bourbon Street Reopens With Extra Security; Major Winter Storm To Hit Parts Of U.S. Aired 3-4p ET

Aired January 03, 2025 - 15:35   ET

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

[15:36:07]

ISABEL ROSALES, CNN HOST: And after a short lived battle, Mike Johnson, the speaker of the House of Representatives, winning the gavel again. And this is what people in Washington are having to contend with, the new 119th Congress, those Congress members having to step out into the snow as the first winter storm of the season kicks on.

I'm Isabel Rosales, live in Atlanta. Thank you so much for joining me today on CNN NEWSROOM.

Let's get right to it.

We begin on Capitol Hill, where Speaker Mike Johnson has just officially been sworn in as the speaker of the House of Representatives. He retained the gavel after a dramatic vote. Two of the three Republican holdouts for his speaker bid, Congressman Keith Self and Ralph Norman, changing their votes from no to yes after sources say they received calls from the President-elect Donald Trump.

That was enough for Johnson to get to that magic number 218, with just one Republican Thomas Massie voting no.

It is a major win for the speaker, avoiding the chaotic and protracted battle that we saw for the gavel with his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, and what he experienced at the start of the last Congress.

All right, let's get to CNN congressional correspondent Lauren Fox on the Hill.

Lauren, avoiding the snow there as best you can. I'm sure it's not -- not pleasant. A very wet and cold out there.

Can you walk us through what happened and how Johnson managed to get to that number 218?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. We're -- going into day, obviously, Speaker Johnson was watching really closely what that vote count was going to be. And then there was a little bit of a moment where it wasn't clear how many no votes he was going to have. And that was because there were about six members who abstained from voting in the first round. That means they simply pretended that they weren't in the chamber, even though we saw many of them with our own eyes, essentially just ignoring their name.

That really added to the suspense in the room. Meanwhile, you had three Republicans who voted against Johnson. One of them, Thomas Massie, had been warning for weeks that he was going to be voting against Johnson.

But those two other members that you mentioned, those folks were not surprises, but they certainly were members that I think Johnson had not necessarily been counting on. Obviously, a huge game changer happened when what you saw was Donald Trump having a phone call with those members, making his plea that if they were committed to moving forward with Donald Trump's agenda, then they had to get to yes, on Mike Johnson.

And there are a few reasons for that. One of them is they are staring down a certification of the election on January 6th. That's just on Monday. So, just a couple of days away.

Beyond that, we know what happens if you have a protracted speaker's fight. We saw it when Kevin McCarthy was ousted. It took House Republicans three weeks to find another candidate. There was no clear second place member.

There was no clear sense of who that would be if it weren't Johnson. And I think that went a long way to convincing some of those members.

We should also just note that Johnson has been making some promises about how he's going to govern moving forward, that he's making clear that he wants to cut spending. That is really important to some of those conservative members in the House Freedom Caucus.

He's also making it clear that he wants to move forward with a larger tax package, renewing a lot of Donald Trump's tax cuts. That's something that, again, was really important to some of those hardliners who wanted to see that moving forward.

ROSALES: Lauren Fox, I appreciate your time and go somewhere dry and warm, please. Thank you.

All right. With me for analysis is a panel of congressional experts, Leigh Ann Caldwell of "The Washington Post", Farnoush Amiri of "The Associated Press", and Ron Brownstein, senior CNN political analyst.

Thank you all for joining me on this first day of the new Congress. And, boy, has it been exciting and wild.

We know that Self, Norman, Massie originally voted for someone else as speaker.

[15:40:06]

And then a phone call came in.

Did Donald Trump just show his influence here, calling those holdouts and getting them from a no to a yes in a relatively short period of time, not 15 rounds like we saw with his predecessor? And sorry, let me get to Farnoush.

Farnoush, I think we have some audio difficulties. While we get that resolved, let me move over to Ron.

RON BROWNSTEIN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Yeah. Look, Trump you know, Trump is the undisputed leader of the Republican Party and he will have sway over this very small and fractious Republican majority.

But to me, the big -- the big indication of today is that is that it really reinforced the message of the battle in December over funding the government and maybe the attempt to, you know, lift the debt ceiling. It's that the pressure on Johnson is coming almost entirely from the right and around one very specific issue above all, which is cutting government spending and potentially launching big cuts in entitlement programs, particularly Medicaid, maybe others.

That is really going to define this. I think Republican House, and it may push Trump toward positions that he will resist and potentially regret, in the same way that the Republican House desired to execute big cutbacks in government led to the effort to repeal the ACA, Affordable Care Act, which was the lowest moment of his first term.

So the dynamic here is that the right is the squeaky wheel in this House Republican majority, and that has big implications for governing over the next two years.

ROSALES: And, Leigh Ann, I think it's curious that it's nine Republicans who voted no or didn't vote originally in this first and only ballot. Nine is the number needed to do a future motion to vacate against Johnson under this new rules package.

Is that a threat?

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST'S EARLY BRIEF: It is definitely a warning to Speaker Johnson that he is being watched and that he must fulfill his promises to reduce spending. That is -- remember when Speaker McCarthy was removed from his job? It only took one member to start that process.

It was a big win for Johnson and some of the more centrist Republicans earlier this year, when they got that number increased from one Republican to nine. So the fact that there were nine today who held out is a huge signal to Johnson that that they aren't going to give him much slack, that they are going to insist that he does what he says he's going to do, which is put forward spending cuts regarding this, these massive bills that are set to move forward, including a very expensive tax cuts package, extending Donald Trump's tax cuts.

There's going to be a border security bill that could cost money, and there's also going to be an energy production bill and other pieces of legislation that could cost trillions of dollars, including the tax cuts. So it's going to be a very difficult job for Speaker Johnson to fulfill these promises, while passing Trump's agenda, while also reducing spending and these far right Republicans are -- they're watching closely. ROSALES: And while having the narrowest margins in nearly a century there with the majority.

Ron Johnson said this morning that he wasn't going to make personal deals to get the job or, in his words, a quid pro quo. But he did release commitments of spending reforms, creating a body to work with, DOGE, to look at government spending and audits of federal agencies.

Is that not personal deals, in a way, to some of the holdouts?

BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, as I said, that's the real dynamic here. It's not a question -- I mean, you know, some members may -- may have sought specific appointments to committees. I will defer to, you know, the folks who follow Congress much more closely than I -- than I ever have.

But the real dynamic here is that the organized pressure on Johnson is around the issue of spending, and that is driving Republicans toward a dynamic that has turned around to bite them in the past. I mean, this -- everything that's been happening around his speakership increases the odds that we will have a fight through 2025 that will pair big tax cuts aimed mostly at the most affluent and corporations, with substantial cuts in federal programs.

That is a fight, Democrats -- you can wake up a Democrat at 2:00 in the morning in December and roll them out of bed. That is a fight they know how to have. We've seen it play out before, and it has usually been tough for Republicans.

[15:45:01]

And I think, as I said, everything that is happening around Johnson holding the speakership is pushing the House toward bigger, not smaller cuts, even as they move to execute big tax cuts.

And you saw in Hakeem Jeffries speech that Democrats are very ready to have that argument. It is much more congenial ground for them than many of the cultural issues that Trump has seized the advantage on.

CALDWELL: Yeah, so many questions still ahead on just how united the GOP is, how much more infighting we can expect, and the legislative challenges that they have ahead.

Leigh Ann Caldwell, Ron Brownstein, and Farnoush -- who we lost there for audio purposes -- thank you so much. I appreciate your time.

Well, still ahead, barricades were supposed to keep new years revelers safe on Bourbon Street in New Orleans. What were learning about why they didn't, leading to the deaths of 14 people.

Stick around.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSALES: U.S. President Joe Biden is set to visit New Orleans on Monday to meet with the grieving families that have been forever changed by the New Year's terror attack. New details are surfacing in the wake of that tragedy that left 14 people dead. A private security firm warned back in 2019 that Bourbon Street was at risk for mass shootings and vehicle attacks.

The famed street in the French Quarter is a tourist magnet. We've seen how busy it gets and it is now open again with extra security.

CNN's Ryan Young reports on the next steps for the city.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RYAN YOUNG, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The world famous Bourbon Street is back open all day long. We've seen officers posted on street corners here and walking the street, and the tourists have returned as well. The street opened up almost 24 hours ago.

And as we walk this direction, this is one of the corners that police have been paying a lot of attention to. This is where one of the IEDs was found in a cooler just over here under the sign. And so, it was good news that that did not explode.

You can see the camera system that's actually up there that probably captured some of the movements of the suspect as this was ongoing.

[15:50:07]

We now know for a fact that the city plans to surge in more resources to the street. They'll be better barricades and their heavy trucks to block people from trying to get in and out when they decide to shut the street down.

But take a listen to the police chief, talk about the movements and the resources of her officers.

ANNE KIRKPATRICK, SUPERINTENDENT, NEW ORLEANS POLICE: That more lives I know were spared and saved. It's not a takeaway at all from those who lost life, but our officers were the ones who stopped this terrorist. I'm so proud of them.

MASTER P, AMERICAN RAPPER AND RECORD PRODUCER: When my city hurt, I hurt. And this is a tragedy. This is evil really. And I feel like God is going to turn this into good.

They're not going to stop us. New Orleans is resilient, and we're stronger together.

YOUNG: We know the two officers who were involved and injured and shot in this have returned home. They, of course, are in stable condition.

The street back open. Tourists are here. Businesses are trying to get back to normal. There are crosses and memorials put up for the victims of this crime. So many people still upset.

We've also been told city council plans a full investigation of exactly why some of the barricades weren't in place, and what was taking so long with that? The FBI also concluded all of the gathering of evidence from the scene.

And of course, hopefully, we'll learn some more information in the coming days about exactly what they've been able to figure out and glean about the suspect and how it got to this point.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

ROSALES: Yeah. Community trying to turn the page as the investigation continues.

Ryan Young, thank you.

A major cold snap is brewing for much of the U.S. we saw it definitely snowing in Washington earlier in the hour. Here's a live picture right now of the Capitol. We will be right back with what to expect this weekend.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

ROSALES: Welcome back.

After numerous U.S. cities saw 2024 being their warmest year on record, the New Year brings much colder temperatures. Along with the cold snap, a major winter storm is set to bring treacherous conditions to millions of people over the weekend.

Meteorologist Chad Myers is tracking it all for us from Atlanta.

Okay, Chad, what is the timeline of this and how disruptive could it actually be?

CHAD MYERS, AMS METEOROLOGIST: It will shut part of the country down.

ROSALES: Wow.

MYERS: That's how bad it will be.

Now, the snow were seeing in the Northeast, we saw some flurries in New York City, saw some flurries. Philadelphia, D.C. just the past couple of hours. But this is not the storm. This is still the lake effect garbage that we've had over the past couple of days. That is the storm.

[15:55:06]

Now, it's still 24 hours away for most of you. But if you want to be somewhere on Sunday, you need to get there tomorrow. And here's why -- because by tomorrow afternoon, the snow and ice begin in Kansas. But by the time you wake up on Sunday, it's already spread through St. Louis, into parts of Paducah, Evansville, all the way into eastern parts of Kentucky by later on in the afternoon.

Look at the amount of size of all the interstates going north, south, east, west that you're either going to be in snow or in an ice storm. And yes, there are ice storm warnings now that are posted, which means the likelihood that people could lose significant power for a long time now exists.

But now, D.C., Baltimore, by the time we work our way into Monday, we're not going to be getting in and out of many of these airports. Visibility will be nothing. Snow will be coming down so hard they won't be able to clear things in time.

And then the ice storm, the ice storm right through the Ohio Valley, right back into, I'd say Evansville, Louisville. If you're north of the ice storm, which is right through here, you're going to get all the snow that might be easier to shovel. And if you're in the ice storm, you're not going to be moving at all.

And be careful with that and really be ready to have no power for maybe the even the early part of next week.

ROSALES: Hey, Chad Myers, you never pull any punches. You are blunt about the seriousness and how impactful this is and we appreciate you for it. Thank you, Chad Myers.

And thank you for joining me today. I'm Isabel Rosales.

"QUEST MEANS BUSINESS" is up next. And of course, have a great weekend.