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Trump Likely To Allow Fed Chair Powell To Serve Out Term; Putin Congratulates Trump On Election Victory; Trump: Mass Deportations Will "Have No Price Tag." Aired 5:30-6a ET

Aired November 08, 2024 - 05:30   ET

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

[05:30:00]

SABRINA RODRIGUEZ, NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST (via Webex by Cisco): The reality is that Donald Trump had a compelling message for some Latinos.

I think for Democrats there was sort of this misconception and this idea that the way that he talks about migrants who have come in recent years and just that incendiary rhetoric he uses against undocumented immigrants was going to resonate with Latinos across the board and they were going to reject him.

But really, Trump played on some of the divisions within the Latino community. He focused a lot on his campaign on saying those migrants who have come in the last few years, they're bad. They're the ones we need to send back. They're the ones taking your jobs. They're taking Hispanic jobs. A lot of attention was placed on how he said they were taking Black jobs. But he also on the campaign trail kept saying taking Hispanic jobs.

So he really tried to create this distinction where he wanted the support of "hardworking Americans" that love this country.

And I think looking forward instead of blaming Latino voters, which is what I see in some of the discourse around this this week, Democrats really have to have a question of why it is that their message did not resonate with a community that they long thought would be loyal to them.

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah. And look, I'm glad you pointed out that most Latinos did vote for Kamala Harris.

But one of the things I think that struck me is that Latino -- with Latino men the gap was particularly noteworthy. It really -- the numbers seem to show what a lot of operatives and sources have been telling me for the last couple of election cycles, which is that increasingly, Latino voters -- they just behave like the rest of the electorate. They don't want to be singled out necessarily or treated in a different way, right?

I mean, if you look at this, Latino men broke for Trump 55 percent to 43 percent. I mean, that's not that far off from the way white men broke for Trump, for example. And this idea that Democrats can separate them out as this kind of

homogenous group that needs to be spoken to specifically when, in fact, they are simply people from all over different places in the world. You know, they -- like, Irish immigrants once came here, or Italian immigrants once came here and then all become Americans.

I'm interested to know kind of your thoughts and particularly, the woman that Ed found who had come from Mexico. She emigrated herself. She used the asylum process. Now she has concerns about how immigrants that are coming this time around are using that process.

I mean, clearly, there's something about even his messaging around immigration that broke through with these voters in the same way it broke through with voters of all races across the country.

RODRIGUEZ: I know, 100 percent. I mean, the reality is that Trump has spent the past four and arguably his entire time in -- you know, his entire political career talking about immigration and railing against people that have crossed the border illegally. Talking about how much they are displacing people and all of that.

On the other side of that we have not seen Democrats really aggressively campaign on immigration. The data point I keep pointing to is Republicans -- the Trump campaign and Republicans spent $243 million on immigration-related ads in this election since Kamala Harris became the nominee. On the other side Democrats spent $15 million -- $243 million to $15 million.

So Latinos, like everyone else, were repeatedly just hearing the same message -- the same message about chaos at the border, people crossing, how unfair it was. That it was all these criminals. That they were taking your jobs. That they were displacing people. And they weren't hearing a compelling message on the other side. So I think that that's something also here to keep in mind.

I mean, Latinos are watching the same channels as everyone else and hearing the same news as everyone else. And for immigrant communities it's so much about economic mobility. It's so much about coming to this country and getting ahead. And the economic anxiety that people felt was very real. We see it. Inflation disproportionately affected Black and Latino families.

So I think if you combine just the relentless messaging on immigration that we saw from Republicans and you see just the amount of economic anxiety that was felt in this country it's just not surprising that Latinos, which are an overwhelmingly working class community, saw something in Donald Trump.

HUNT: Yeah, it's really, really fascinating reporting.

Sabrina Rodriguez, thank you so much for bringing your perspective for us today. I really appreciate it.

All right, the Federal Reserve cutting its benchmark lending rate for the second time this year, this time by a quarter of a point. Even with inflation seemingly under control, President-elect Trump is

vowing to impose tariffs on all U.S. imports. It's a move that many economists believe could reignite inflation.

Trump has also talked about firing the fed chair Jerome Powell who he appointed in 2018. Powell was asked about that possibility.

[05:35:05]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REPORTER: Some of the President-elect's advisers have suggested that you should resign. If he asks you to leave, would you go?

JEROME POWELL, CHAIRMAN, FEDERAL RESERVE: No.

REPORTER: Can you follow up on his -- do you think that legally, you're not required to leave?

POWELL: No.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A senior adviser to Trump tells CNN the president-elect will likely allow Powell to serve out the remainder of his term, which expires in May of 2026, although that adviser cautions Trump could change his mind.

Our next guests writes, "Powell also repeatedly emphasized that the Fed's near-term rate path will not react to expectations about Trump's policy plans. Trump has often been a Powell critic, and during his first presidency flirted with firing the Fed chair. Powell said today that he would leave if asked to resign, nor does he think it's legal for a president to fire Fed governors from their positions."

Jeanna Smialek, the Fed and economics correspondent for The New York Times, joins us now. Jeanna, good morning. It's wonderful to see you.

Powell was very direct there, not always a tactic that tends to go over very well with the former president and now the president-elect Trump.

Were you surprised by how direct he was in talking about that? And how do you think the politics of this affects the economic decision-making process?

JEANNA SMIALEK, FED AND ECONOMICS CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES (via Webex by Cisco): I wasn't particularly surprised because I think this is the thing the Fed has obviously been giving a lot of thought to, I would imagine. Given that Trump made clear that he was thinking about first firing and then demoting Chair Powell during his first administration, I imagine the Fed has spent a lot of time on the legal possibilities around this.

And I think that Jay Powell was trying to be as emphatic as possible in communicating that he doesn't think he can be fired while also leaving absolutely no room for misinterpretation. I think that's what that was yesterday.

And so it's a -- it's very clear that he doesn't think that he can be fired, but that doesn't mean that this election isn't going to affect the Fed. They are going to have to take into account the policies that Trump is planning when they think about how the economy is going to shape up in the year -- several years ahead, and that could potentially affect the rate path, although it's just too early to tell exactly how and to what magnitude at this point.

HUNT: So, Jeanna, let's talk a little bit about the decision that they made yesterday. What does it say to you about where the Fed thinks that the economy is, and how do you understand -- I mean, they're saying we don't know yet what these policies are actually going to be so we can't make decisions based on hypothetical future policies that don't yet exist. But that said, there is a lot of power in the presidency to do -- deal with tariffs, for example, and that could potentially be inflationary.

How are those things being balanced?

SMIALEK: Yeah. So I think yesterday needs to be looked at as a short- term decision. The Fed made a single rate cut. I think that's an optimistic message all around in the sense that it suggests that the Fed thinks inflation is under control and that the economy is growing at a steady pace. It doesn't require it to do some sort of vague emergency rate cut -- just a normal sized rate cut -- basically, good news.

Looking forward, as you say, of course, the president can have quite a bit of influence in areas that matter to the Fed. If you look at most Wall Street analysts, they assume that President Trump's policy packages, particularly the tariffs, are going to push up inflation at least a little -- some think quite a bit.

And so I think there is this question looming over the future, but the Fed is just not prepared to talk about it yet because it really doesn't have enough certainty about exactly what those policies are going to look like, what the magnitudes are, when they're going to hit. At this point it's all campaigning and campaigning just can't drive Fed policy.

And so I think we're going to have to wait and see a little bit more detail before we get more information from the Fed about how they're going to think about this as they go about their business.

HUNT: All right, Jeanna Smialek for us this morning. Jeanna, thank you very much -- appreciate it.

SMIALEK: Thank you.

HUNT: All right, still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, welcoming the comeback. President-elect Trump receiving an outpouring of support from world leaders, including one that's a U.S. adversary.

Plus, Trump promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants. How exactly would his new administration go about doing that? (COMMERCIAL)

[05:43:15]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, THEN-PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, 2018: I have great confidence in my intelligence people. But I will tell you that President Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial today.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Then-President Donald Trump back in 2018 siding with Russian President Vladimir Putin over U.S. intelligence agencies' assessment that Russia had meddled in the 2016 election.

Six years later, Trump now preparing to reenter the White House while Putin is now engaged in an offensive war against Ukraine. And it is unclear what Trump's re-election will mean for the United States' support of Ukraine in the conflict.

Yesterday, Putin publicly congratulated the new president-elect.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): I take this opportunity to congratulate him with his election to the post of the President of the United States of America. I have said already that we will be working together with any head of state who would be trusted by the American people.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Joining us now, senior international correspondent Fred Pleitgen. Fred, good morning to you. It's always wonderful to see you.

You are a very close watcher of Vladimir Putin. He doesn't do anything by accident. It was interesting to me that he waited the amount of time --

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah.

HUNT: -- that he did before making this announcement.

What do you make of that, and how are you understanding and taking in his message right now?

PLEITGEN: Well, first of all, I think you're absolutely right that Vladimir Putin doesn't do anything without some sort of calculation going on.

And I think that it certainly was no coincidence that he made that announcement yesterday where he congratulated President-elect Trump while at the same time the Kremlin had said that there would not be an official congratulatory phone call coming from President Putin towards President-elect Trump. So it was quite interesting to see that yesterday.

[05:45:00]

And the Kremlin was actually asked about that today and they said look, if Vladimir Putin said that at that event -- it was a Valdai Club event -- a forum where he said that -- then that could be taken as an official form of congratulations.

But some of the other things that Putin said as well were also pretty interesting. He said that he's open to anyone who wants to mend relations with Russia.

He also said that he wouldn't be averse if president -- when he becomes president, Trump calls Vladimir Putin and asks for a phone call or asks for a meeting, but that Putin would not initiate something like that himself. So it seems as though the Russian president appears pretty sure that the U.S. is going to take the first step in trying to maybe not normalize relations but at least improve them somewhat.

One of the other things that Putin also said is that obviously, he had heard the remarks that Donald Trump made on the campaign trail about Ukraine, about the war in Ukraine, about wanting to end the war in Ukraine which, of course, causes a lot of concern among the Ukrainians who fear that the U.S. could completely cut off military aid to Ukraine and that alone makes the president-elect an interesting figure for the Russians and for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

So they certainly are sensing that there could be improvement in the relations. That maybe they wouldn't get back on track completely, but they do see an inroad they believe into the incoming administration, Kasie.

HUNT: Yeah.

Fred, let's watch a little bit more of what Putin had to say Thursday at this summit. He was talking about kind of in his view, the reordering of the global system; one where he harkened back to the systems that were put in place in the wake of World War II. Let's watch.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PUTIN (through translator): These two last decades were not just filled with the most important and sometimes dramatic events of truly historic scale. Before our eyes a completely new world order is being formed unlike what we know from the past. For example, the Westphalia or Yalta systems. New powers are rising. People are becoming more and more aware of their interests, their self-worth, originality, and identity, and are increasingly insisting on achieving the goals of development and justice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Fred, it just stuck out to me that he mentioned Westphalia and Yalta as we kind of stand on this precipice. One of the biggest differences between when Trump was in office before

and now is that the uneasy but existent alliance between the Chinese and the Russians has come more to the forefront here. And there is, of course, this sense in Western Europe that perhaps the American-led -- the Pax Americana that reigned in the wake of World War II is kind of disintegrating in the face of the Donald Trump re-election.

How do you look at all of this?

PLEITGEN: Well, I think that that's exactly what Vladimir Putin has on his mind, and I think that that's exactly what he means with this new world order.

Of course, the other thing that's happened in the past couple of years is the war in Ukraine -- is Russia's invasion of Ukraine. And one of the things that Vladimir Putin keeps talking about is he keeps saying that is something that shows that Russia is a sovereign nation and not a nation that is willing to be subservient, as he puts it, to that Pax Americana to a U.S.-dominated world, as the Russians say that they see it.

But I think Vladimir Putin is really trying to create or at least trying to make it appear as though he's creating an alternative world -- an alternative world order, and I think the relations with China are one part of that.

But one of the things, of course, that the Russians are really trying to build up is the BRICS community. It is this community of nations that are sort of on the cusp of being very strong economic nations where you have China, you have India. There are some other countries that are trying to get in there as well.

What Vladimir Putin appears to be trying to do though is he appears to be trying to make himself the sort of leader or the Galionsfigur of that alternative movement to that sort of Western-dominated world as he sees it, Kasie.

HUNT: Really interesting.

Fred Pleitgen for us this morning. Fred, so grateful to have you. Thank you very much.

All right. Officials at the Department of Homeland Security are bracing for a seismic shift in immigration policy now that Donald Trump is returning to the White House. The president-elect appears determined to make good on a campaign promise to deport millions of illegal immigrants, and he says that price is no object.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: On day one, I will launch the largest deportation program in American history. We're going to get the criminals out. I will rescue every city and town that has been invaded and conquered, and we will put these vicious and bloodthirsty criminals in jail. We're going to kick them the hell out of our country as fast as possible.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: According to the American Immigration Council, the cost of deporting 13 million undocumented immigrants over the next 10-plus years would be $968 billion.

Let's bring in John Sandweg, the former acting director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. John, good morning to you.

Can you talk a little bit about what this would take to actually execute? I mean, this would be potentially as many as a million immigrants per year. We tried to give you a little bit of an idea what the resources would be for that. But for the agency that you once led, what do you think it looks like?

[05:50:10]

JOHN SANDWEG, FORMER ACTING DIRECTOR, U.S. IMMIGRATION & CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (via Webex by Cisco): Well look, the president has been -- the president-elect, excuse me, has been very light on details and about what mass deportations would look like, and there's a reason. It's going to be incredibly difficult.

So as you talked about, it's going to take a tremendous amount of money. And just to baseline this a little bit, ICE has about a $9 billion budget currently. Not all of that is dedicated to immigration enforcement. But if you look at 2019 and probably the largest year of deportations in the first Trump administration, they deported about 267,000 individuals. So it's going to take a tremendous ramping up of the agency.

Now, he does -- the president-elect looks like he's going to have both the Senate and the House, so it's possible they get that money. But even if the check was written tomorrow, Kasie, it's still a tremendous effort just to deploy that -- those funds.

You're going to need to rapidly increase the number of agents. You have to find people who are suitable for the job. You have to get them through background checks. You have to get them through the training academy. None of that is as easy as it sounds, and it takes years just to do that.

Increase in detention beds. Right now we have about 41,000 detention beds. To do the kind of numbers the president-elect is talking about you're going to need 200,000. Those facilities don't exist today.

So even -- not only is it going to take these tremendous amount of funds but just logistically it's a tremendous challenge for them.

HUNT: Can you speak to whether this is going to be legal? I mean, what are -- what do the laws say about what the president is able to do -- any president is allowed to do in this circumstance? And how do you understand how Trump himself and his incoming administration -- I mean, obviously, he has -- he has allies like Stephen Miller who is very focused on this -- you know, very aware of the ins and outs on the law -- of the law.

What's that going to look like?

SANDWEG: Well look, the fundamental -- even -- setting aside these resource issues -- not only are you going to need these officers, these detention beds, removal flights, and all of those kind of issues, the biggest problem -- the biggest impediment to carrying this out is the immigration courts.

The Supreme Court has long said that before individuals are deported they are entitled to a full and fair hearing. You know, that means a hearing before an immigration judge in which they can present defenses to deportation. Sometimes, Kasie, those defenses are I'm a U.S. citizen. Other times there are -- there are certain benefits under the immigration law that allow some migrants to stay in this county -- of course, asylum being one of the biggest ones.

The problem is those courts are tremendously backlogged. Congress has never really funded the courts to keep up with the volume. So now, Stephen Miller and others are looking at the situation. They know that's the problem.

Look, really quickly, during the last administration there was no lack of political will to deport as many people as possible. It's not like this is an entirely new concept. Yet, the Trump administration's numbers were below those of the Obama administration when it came to deportations. The reason why was backlogs in the immigration court.

So the president-elect is going to need to push the envelope in terms of -- he's going to try through executive orders and other regulations and things like that to strip migrants of these rights to due process. We saw it before at the border and now we're going to -- I'm confident we're going to see it in the interior of the U.S.

There will, of course, be lawsuits -- and it's a different court today -- but ultimately, testing the limits of how far he can go. But really, look, there's just zero chance he can get anywhere close to where he wants to go unless he pushes the envelope on due process to its absolute bare minimum.

HUNT: And one, of course -- one of the considerations, of course, is children who are parts of families. I mean, we know that there are so many American households -- I think one research -- set of research put it at one in 25 American households has someone who is undocumented.

And of Trump's supporters was asked about what in this case they might do about children, for example, who have two undocumented parents but they themselves are U.S. citizens, and the suggestion was made that they all be deported together.

I mean, is that legal under any of these potential strictures, and how worried should Americans in that situation be?

SANDWEG: Look, there's been a lot of talk in the administration -- or the incoming administration like to talk about this -- is focusing on criminals. The reality is ICE is incredibly good at getting criminals today. ICE gets the fingerprints of every individual booked into every jail in America -- jail and prison in America.

They're -- in fact, the majority of the deportations we see right now are people coming through the criminal justice system. But when you start talking about deporting a million people-plus, that goes well beyond those criminals. And so you --

Let's look at the demographics quickly of the undocumented population -- roughly, 11 million to 12 million people in this country. More than -- well more than half of them have been here since at least 2015 if not earlier. So we're looking at a population that's been here for at least 10 years.

There are varying estimates about it. From 4.6 to 6.6 million are mixed status families. So you have an undocumented mother or an undocumented father with their U.S. citizen children, or an undocumented spouse living with their U.S. citizen husband or wife. That's the population we're talking about. You can't get to a million unless you start tapping into that population.

[05:55:08]

And yes, you're going to face these incredibly difficult choices. Of course, you cannot deport a U.S. citizen. You just cannot do that. But what you can do is create a really difficult choice for that family where you say we're going to deport mom or dad, or both mom and dad, and those children are forced to make a decision whether to stay in the U.S. and live with a relative or to -- or for the entire family unit to move back to the original home country.

These are -- these -- listen, I know there has been a lot of support --

HUNT: Yeah.

SANDWEG: -- for this concept of mass deportation, and I get that there's a lot of frustration with this idea that there's some really are -- and it's true. There are some serious criminals operating who are in this country unlawfully that we do need to deport.

But when you -- really, what mass deportation means just by -- just by definition because of the demographics in this country, it means these really hard choices where you start --

HUNT: Yeah.

SANDWEG: -- ripping these families apart. And I'm not sure there's an appetite --

HUNT: Right.

SANDWEG: -- for that. And I think that to the same extent that the polls kind of suggest there might have been.

HUNT: Right. Well, you're talking about family separation, which was not something that was -- that the American people reacted well to when it was happening at the border. This is a quite remarkable possibility.

John Sandweg for us this morning. John, thanks very much for being here. I appreciate it.

SANDWEG: Yeah, thank you.

HUNT: All right, straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, kickstarting his transition. President-elect Trump tapping his campaign manager to a top job in the White House.

Plus, President Biden accepts his party's defeat and gets ready to hand the presidency back to the man he beat just four years ago.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: We lost this battle. The America of your dreams is calling for you to get back up. The American experiment endures. We're going to be OK.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL)