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Trump Virtually Pardons 1,250 Plus Jan. 6 Convicts; DOGE to be Park of Federal Government; Soon: Trump and Vance Attend Prayer Service. Aired 10:30-11a ET

Aired January 21, 2025 - 10:30   ET

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


[10:30:00]

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: -- short time from now, we are going to be changing the name of the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, and we will restore the name of a great president, William McKinley to Mount McKinley where it should be and where it belongs.

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JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR: That drew a hearty chuckle from Hillary Clinton while many Republicans stood and cheered. The order calls for all federal government maps and documents to reflect the changes. You heard Trump also talking about his order to change the name of North America's tallest mountain, Denali back to Mount McKinley, undoing President Obama's decision that restored the peak's native name. The White House says these actions will, quote, "honor American greatness."

And meanwhile, during his inaugural address, President Trump also doubled down on his pledge to take back the Panama Canal.

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TRUMP: We have been treated very badly from this foolish gift that should have never been made and Panama's promise to us has been broken. The purpose of our deal and the spirit of our treaty has been totally violated. China is operating the Panama Canal, and we didn't give it to China, we gave it to Panama, and we're taking it back.

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ACOSTA: A quick fact-check, false, that is false, China does not operate the Panama Canal, Panama has run the vital waterway since the U.S. turned it over in 1999. Panama's president rejected Trump's comments saying, quote, "The canal is and will continue to be Panama's and its administration will continue to be under Panamanian control with respect to its permanent neutrality."

Joining us now is Democratic Congressman Jim Himes. He's also the ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee. Congressman, good morning. Thanks so much for being with us. What did you make of Trump using his inaugural speech to repeat his vow to take back the Panama Canal? Is there going to be a war in Panama and the United States is going to seize the canal, or is this just stuff that he throws out there and you don't take it that seriously?

REP. JIM HIMES (D-CT), RANKING MEMBER, INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE: Yes Jim, the answer to your question is no. But you know, as I sat there, and I must say, I sat there, I went to the inauguration, I went to the luncheon afterwards, and I said, look, I'm going to force myself to be open, to be optimistic that there will be ways to work together. But then, the very next thought is, you know, Donald Trump probably won because my party took its eye off the economic ball on the cost of chicken, on inflation. And Donald Trump promised to fix that before he became president. Now, he is president and he hasn't fixed it.

And what he's doing right now, it's a "Hunger Games" thing, right? Don't look over here, look over there. Look at the Panama Canal, look at Mount McKinley, look at all these crazy high school football pep rally things that I can say to you to get that little adrenaline rush so you forget the fact that there is no way I'm going to deliver on the economic promises I made. So, it's a distraction.

And by the way, Jim, it's a dangerous distraction. We -- you know, the Panama Canal has a long imperial history, right? Teddy Roosevelt basically stole parts of Columbia to build the Panama Canal. And yes, it's important to us, but when you treat a country like Panama the way the president treated Panama yesterday, Colombia notices, Venezuela notices, Brazil notices, Argentina notices. These are countries that we need economically, and they're countries that are absolutely essential to working with us to stop the flow of fentanyl into this country.

So, I guess the short way of putting that is that there's really nothing good about this new president deciding he's going to emphasize, you know, taking back the Panama Canal.

ACOSTA: Well, you mentioned the countries in Latin America noticing. I assume China notices too?

HIMES: Yes. Look, I think China --

ACOSTA: I mean, if the president can say, we're going to go take the Panama Canal, I mean, couldn't China say, OK, well then, I guess that means we can take Taiwan?

HIMES: Look, I think China is sophisticated enough to see exactly what President Trump is doing, which is a game of distraction away from the issues that really matter to the American people.

You know, Jim, I look at polling every once in a while, and I can tell you that Panama or the name of Mount Denali is not on the top 50 list of American concerns. So, the Chinese understand that this is a distraction mechanism and I think they're probably happy that now Panama, which is a critical ally, we've got military in Panama, the Canal is really pretty important to us, now they've been subjected to, as you pointed out, a series of lies that we've been treated badly, that the Chinese run, absolute lies, and the Chinese are saying, you know what, President Trump is gratuitously, for no apparent reason, damaging American relationships with critical allies. Pop the champagne, folks, in Beijing. That's what they're thinking.

ACOSTA: Well, and it's interesting because, I mean, you were saying and others have been saying, oh, don't take this seriously about the Panama Canal, he's not going to do this. But when it comes to January 6th, he was out there on the campaign trail, he was vowing to release the so-called hostages, as he's called them, which is not the case, they're not hostages.

And let's talk about Trump's pardons of the Capitol rioters. I mean, he said he would do this and he's done it. He promised to do it on a case-by-case review and that is not what took place. They were just blanket pardons and commutations. What was your response to that?

HIMES: Yes. You know, I said, Jim, I -- you know, I went to the inauguration, I did my best as a Democrat to say, I'm going to be -- I'm going to put as happy a face on this as I can. I'm going to find ways to work with this administration.

[10:35:00]

And then, four hours into his presidency, to see the people who attacked this building who came after me, and by the way, I was one of the last people out of the chamber, to see them pardoned, to see them held up as political prisoners, I got to tell you, it was enormously painful. Painful for what it portends for the rule of law in this country, but painful for my institution.

You know, the very next day, after January 6th, every Republican in this chamber had signs on their doors saying, thank you, Capitol Police. Thank you for your heroism. Today, not one of them is going to say that the pardoning of the people who killed and attacked and wounded and hurt Capitol Police that that's a problem. And that just shows you that this place has become, at least in the Republican Party, a cult. A one-man cult.

ACOSTA: And I do want to ask you about President Biden's pardons because, could you make an argument that that outgoing President Biden undermined the sound and fury that you're voicing right now and that we're hearing from others by issuing some of these pardons to his family members and so on, raising questions about the use of presidential pardons? Might somebody sitting around the kitchen table in Omaha say, well, Biden did it, trump did it. Not -- I am not conflating those things or saying that they're on an equal level, I'm just saying that some Americans might do that. And are you concerned about that?

HIMES: I am. And, Jim, I'm going to do something for you that you don't hear very often in this chamber, which is I'm going to revert to principle. The principle that the pardon power should be used by the president to reverse miscarriages of justice. And yes, I'm very concerned. I did not support Joe Biden's pardoning of his son who was prosecuted by his own Justice Department, by the way. I did not support the outgoing last-minute pardons for members of his family for precisely the reason that you talk about.

What matters here and what's getting lost in Washington today, starting yesterday, is any adherence to principle, any adherence to principle. It's all teams, it's all tribal. So, yes, you're going to hear a Democrat right now say that what Trump did yesterday was an appalling attack on the rule of law, and Biden, in some ways, enabled that by issuing pardons to his family without any reversion to principle of miscarriages of justice.

So, you know, again, I'm not going to tell you this is a symmetrical problem, you know, pardoning violent attackers of police officers is different than pardoning your son who has real problems. But this country, if we're going to have a democracy, is going to get back to principle.

ACOSTA: Yes. And, Congressman, we have just a few seconds left, what is going to happen to Ukraine?

HIMES: Jim, you know, here's the very short answer, we know how the president talks about it, but Marco Rubio and his national security team are people who I think are -- who understand the stakes with Russia. So, I'm not -- I shouldn't be, but I'm not as pessimistic about that as perhaps I was six months ago before the appointment of Marco Rubio and others.

ACOSTA: Do you think the secretary of state can say no to Donald Trump? We've seen this movie before, sometimes that results in a firing by tweet.

HIMES: Well, look, you saw the way the president talks about Panama. He doesn't know anything about Panama. He doesn't know much about Ukraine-Russia either. So, he's famously subject to whoever the last person is that talked to him. So, so long as somebody like Marco Rubio as opposed to Steve Bannon is the last guy to talk to him on Ukraine, I feel OK. Obviously, we don't know if that'll be the case, but I think that we're still in the game there, so to speak.

ACOSTA: All right. Congressman Jim Himes of Connecticut, thanks very much. We'll be right back.

HIMES: Thank you.

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[10:40:00]

ACOSTA: All right. welcome back. We want to show you some live pictures right now. There's the National Cathedral, the beautiful chapel there on Northwest D.C. And inside, you can see some live pictures coming inside the National Cathedral ahead of the National Prayer Service, which will be taking place within the next 20 minutes or so.

Just a few moments ago we saw the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. I think you can see Mike Johnson, the House speaker right there greeting folks on hand. We're going to keep monitoring these images. We'll bring them to you if anything interesting pops up.

But in the meantime, in a surprising new development, DOGE or the Department of Government Efficiency will now operate as part of the federal government not just an advisory group after President Trump signed an executive order on day one. The office is already facing multiple lawsuits filed just minutes into Trump's presidency. They claimed DOGE would violate federal transparency laws. And in another shake up, Vivek Ramaswamy, who was tapped to run the office alongside Elon Musk is leaving to run for Ohio governor.

Joining me now to talk about this is attorney and White House -- excuse me, white collar defense lawyer Seth Berenzweig. Seth, good to see you as always. And I mean, there are some folks who might say the Department of Government Efficiency sounds like an oxymoron. You have a department of the federal government to get rid of government waste, but putting that to the side, is it legal?

SETH BERENZWEIG, BUSINESS AND COMPLIANCE ATTORNEY, CONSTITUTIONAL ATTORNEY AND WHITE COLLAR DEFENSE LAWYER: Well, the answer is probably yes. And I think, as we'll discuss, this entity called DOGE is probably a bit of a hybrid. Among all the activity that happened here in Washington yesterday, there were three cases that burst into the D.C. courthouse federal doors, claiming that DOGE is violating a federal statute requiring advisory committees to turn square corners if they're going to be advising the president on certain aspects relating to public policy and practice.

And it's a very interesting read because they say that they don't have a charter that needs to be filed with the Library of Congress and certain federal agencies, they're not operating in transparency, so forth and so on. Here's the only problem, it burst so quickly in the courthouse doors that it was -- it instituted before DOGE was even authorized to form via an executive order.

[10:45:00]

It's being served against two agency leads that haven't even been authorized to begin their job by the United States Senate. So, it burst in so quickly that they really got out ahead of their skis and they arrived before the party even started.

ACOSTA: Yes. And what about the role of Elon Musk? I mean, people are making a big deal and talking about Elon Musk being a part of this. I mean, you know, you have somebody who is the richest man in the world, somebody who has a variety of companies, which over the years have had business with the federal government, receive different benefits and loans and aid and that sort of thing, and he's now going to be in charge of the office that is going to be finding which parts of the federal government to get rid of.

BERENZWEIG: Right.

ACOSTA: Isn't there an inherent conflict of interest there? Am I asking an obvious question?

BERENZWEIG: Well, there could be, and that's going to be part of the allegations of the case, but on the flip side of the coin Mr. Musk has a lot of experience trimming the fat, if you will, and the 47th president has said that this is an individual who can really do a good job putting the constituent body together to at least look at this issue.

It burst in so quickly that it really raises the question, why are we even here? Why did it even happen? And I think it's principally two reasons. The first is that these folks are trying to throw sand into the wheels to try to slow down the machine of change. This is going to be the biggest change proposed to the federal government in over half a century.

And the second reason is that they want a seat at the table. One of the elements of transparency in turning these square corners is they have to be involved in meetings. They have to be able to understand what's happening. There has to be written agenda and so forth. And they'll probably be included in that. But it's very interesting to see that some of the parties include unions that don't want to have these bureaucrats chopped and have some of these jobs go to, for example, federal government contractors that might be able to get the job done more efficiently.

So, this is going to be one of the biggest changes in over half a century, and now we have these three cases that will probably end up getting consolidated and combined as the cases move forward in federal court.

ACOSTA: A lot of lawyers are going to be busy. A lot of judges are going to be busy. The courts will be busy unpacking all of this.

BERENZWEIG: There you go.

ACOSTA: Seth Berenzweig, thank you very much. We appreciate it.

Coming up soon, President Trump and Vice President J. D. Vance will take part in a prayer for the nation at the National Cathedral here in Washington. We will bring that to you live when it happens. Be right back.

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[10:50:00]

ACOSTA: All right. Some breaking news to tell you about up on Capitol Hill. A warning from a Republican senator about security for members of Congress in the wake of Donald Trump's mass pardons of January 6th rioters. Let's go straight to seen as Lauren Fox. She's up on Capitol Hill for us. Lauren, what are you hearing?

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, we are just getting a lot of swift reaction from Republicans and Democrats alike, but really notable comments from Senator Thom Tillis, a Republican from the State of North Carolina. He often talks about how he was one of the last Republican senators leaving that chamber on January 6th. And he told us that he simply just can't agree with the decision that Trump made to pardon or commute the sentences of January 6th attackers, especially those who attacked police officers.

He said he does have plans to file legislation later today that would strengthen some of the penalties for people who kill police officers. He also said that he has concerns about what it means for security on Capitol Hill. Here's what he said.

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SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): That police officers could potentially be assaulted and there's no consequence. I mean, it's pretty straightforward to me.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Thank you, sir.

FOX: Senator, can I just ask you --

TILLIS: Yes?

FOX: -- have you talked to any capital police officers this morning? What is their reaction?

TILLIS: Well, I haven't talked to them. I wouldn't expect them to react because they're professionals and if they're not happy about it they will probably say that outside of this bill. I would expect a single police officer to say a word about it.

FOX: Do you have concerns about the message it sends?

TILLIS: Well, it's like I said, I think that it raises I think a legitimate safety question here on Capitol Hill.

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FOX: Now, he also went on to say that in his last hours as president, that Joe Biden also raised questions on Capitol Hill because of some of his decisions on pardons. But I just want to point out, you know, Thom Tillis is up for re-election in the state of North Carolina in two years. And I think that this does mark sort of a significant departure and concern.

Some of the strongest that I've seen so far this morning from a Republican, I will say I also pressed Senator John Cornyn, who's a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee, on what he thought, he said that this is the president's prerogative to make these decisions pressed on whether or not he agreed with it. He said that is not the question. Jim.

ACOSTA: All right. Lauren Fox with some very good reporting up on Capitol Hill. Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina, is saying these pardons of the January 6th rioters are a legitimate safety issue. We'll have more on that in the hours ahead here on CNN.

In the meantime, thank you very much for joining us this morning. I'm Jim Acosta. Our next hour of Newsroom with Pamela Brown starts after a short break. Have a good day.

[10:55:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning. You are live in the CNN Newsroom. I'm Pamela Brown in Washington. And right now, at the National Cathedral in Washington, President Trump, Vice President J. D. Vance and political religious leaders are attending an interfaith service. It's prayer for the nation, to give thanks for America's democracy and to quote, "seek God's guidance in the years ahead."

CNN's Alayna Treene is live right outside at the Washington National Cathedral. Alayna, what will we see during the service?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, Pamela, we actually just learned that Donald Trump is on his way here now for that service. Both he and some of his family members, but also the family of J. D. Vance, the vice president, are expected to attend the service today.

I'm also told that the Presidential Inaugural Committee has invited several members of Donald Trump's cabinet, oncoming -- or now, administration officials, I should say --

[11:00:00]