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Trump Names Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff; Crews Working to Contain California Wildfire. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired November 08, 2024 - 06:00   ET

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

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, November 8. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[06:00:44]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE DEREK VAN DAM: Susie likes to stay in the background. She's not in the background.

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HUNT: From the background to the spotlight. Donald Trump fills his most important post, chief of staff, with a key member of his inner circle.

And this --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I'm convinced we will have a larger majority this time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Hanging in the balance. The Republicans eke out another win and regain control of the House -- or keep control of the House, I should say.

And this.

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE DEREK VAN DAM: You can't love your country only when you win.

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HUNT: Accepting defeat. President Biden promises a peaceful transition of power as he looks at his legacy in office.

And later --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: There's a lot of blame to go around.

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HUNT: Blame game. Democrats looking inward and trying to figure out what went wrong and what's next for the Democratic Party.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at a beautiful sunrise in New York City. It's Friday. So, you know, the world seems to know that.

Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.

Two days after a decisive electoral victory, Donald Trump has made his first and what could be his most important staffing decision. The president-elect choosing 2024 campaign cochair Susie Wiles to be his White House chief of staff.

Announcing the decision yesterday, Trump called Wiles, quote, "tough, smart and innovative."

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TRUMP: Let me also express my tremendous appreciation for Susie and Chris, the job you did. Susie. Come here, Susie. Chris, come here, Chris.

Susie likes to stay sort of in the back, let me tell you. The ice maiden. We call her the ice maiden.

Thank you, Susie. Look at this, the shock. I've never seen her be shocked before. Susie.

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HUNT: A source telling CNN Wiles accepted the job on the condition that she continue to be empowered to control access to Trump.

During the campaign, this allowed her to insulate him from his most extreme advisors and other right-wing figures considered to be too fringe. The source saying, quote, "The clown car can't come into the White House at will, and he agrees with her."

It is that, quote, "clown car," that made the job of chief of staff especially challenging during Donald Trump's first term.

John Kelly, retired four-star Marine general who held the position for a year and half, once confided in a White House communications aide, saying this: quote, "This is the most expletive job I've ever had. People apparently think that I care when they write that I might be fired. If that ever happened ,it would be the best day I've had since I walked into this place."

Kelly was one of four men who served as chief of staff during Trump's first term, a reflection of Trump's chaotic management style, shall we say. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: The White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, forced out and replaced now by the current homeland security secretary, retired Marine Corps General John Kelly.

FREDERICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Chief of staff John Kelly will leave his post at the White House at the end of the year.

BRIANNA KEILAR, CNN ANCHOR: President Trump has just tweeted that budget director Nick Mulvaney will be named his acting chief of staff.

JAKE TAPPER, CNN ANCHOR: Mick Mulvaney's gone.

JIM ACOSTA, CNN ANCHOR/CORRESPONDENT: He's gone.

The president announcing on Twitter just in the last several minutes that he's naming the Republican congressman from North Carolina, Mark Meadows, as his new chief of staff.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A walk down memory lane.

All right. Joining us now to discuss, Elliot Williams, CNN legal analyst, former federal prosecutor; Molly Ball, senior political correspondent for "The Wall Street Journal"; Philippe Reines, former senior advisor to Hillary Clinton; Matt Gorman, Republican strategist, former senior advisor to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you. Thank you, guys, for being here.

Matt Gorman, I want to start with you on Susie Wiles. Because this is -- she's obviously been with Trump for the last four years. But she is not someone who is new to politics. She was in Republican politics for a long time before Trump was on the scene. She is incredibly deeply and widely respected. She's the first woman that's going to hold this role, which is historic.

I think it's very telling that, basically, her one condition was I control access to the guy in the front office.

MATT GORMAN, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: That's a great pick. She's a great operative, gets -- has a lot of respect from the party. And I think also, you know, look, her and Chris LaCivita ran a very, very good campaign. I would have said that if they lost.

[06:05:06]

They were -- it was very disciplined. They did their best to, I think, really control some of the -- the -- as they put, the impulses on Trump that would lead him to self-destruct in some ways. And they did a great job on that.

And one of the other things that makes it new for a person like Susie to come into this job, as opposed to the other four Trump chiefs of staff, she's the first, I guess, real operative to be it. Right? Like, you had Reince Priebus, who was a chairman; members of Congress, even you know, a general.

She's an operative. So, she gets the tactics on this. She understands, I think, in a better way, I assume, maybe more than the other folks, exactly how the train is supposed to run on time. And not at a high level, at a very granular level.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: Ken Duberstein, Ronald Reagan, was probably the last operative in that mold.

HUNT: We do have Rahm Emmanuel, who was a congressman but also fancied himself --

WILLIAMS: Fair, fair, fair point.

HUNT: But anyway, continue.

WILLIAMS: Great. Good staffing choice. Grown-ups in the room, all of the above. And I think we can agree with that.

Let's take a look at his statement last night. You know, helped me and one of the greatest victories in American history. An integral part of both my 2016 and 2020 successful campaigns.

And the question is, is he -- yes, she is the force restraining the former president and the grown-up in the room. But he's still, even in announcing this wonderful pick, he's still going back to this nonsense of having won the 2020 election.

And I just wonder all of these efforts and attempts to restrain the former president's impulses, and future president's impulses, how good of a job can she actually do?

MOLLY BALL, SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, "THE WALL STREET JOURNAL": I don't think she sees her role as restraining him, frankly. And I think that's why she's been successful.

I think she sees her role as channeling those impulses and managing around him. But she's someone who manages down much more than she manages up. She has a lot of respect for her abilities as a manager. Right? The staff that she manages thinks very, very highly of her.

So, she's able to create non-chaotic conditions around Trump, but she really doesn't try to -- you know, she really was on board with the sort of "let Trump be Trump" strategy of the campaign.

The idea was he's going to say what he's going to say, and we're going to sort of run a professional operation around that. But we're not going to tell him what he can and can't do, because that is always doomed to fail.

HUNT: One of the things that I thought was most interesting, Philippe, was that she was often on the road with Trump. So, to Molly's point, she understood that, OK, you can't make him do anything that he doesn't want to do.

But also, that, with Trump, proximity is power. Because typically in a job like that, you wouldn't necessarily be on the campaign plane all the time. You know, I mean, many of the campaign managers I've covered in the past were back in, you know, Boston, or New York or where kind of -- wherever the campaign headquarters were, Wilmington.

That's not how she operates. Kind of her understanding of how to work with him seems to be a significant part of the -- of her success here.

PHILIPPE REINES, FORMER SENIOR ADVISOR TO HILLARY CLINTON: Yes, well, I mean, to go back to Elliot's comment of the adult in the room, by implication, that means the other people in the room were children.

So, it's unfortunate we're right back to this, where there has to be someone who can whatever term you want to use -- control, corral.

Yes, it is a little strange for a campaign manager to be on the road so much. But we should see that for what it is. It's not -- it wasn't a move out of power to be close to the president; it was a move out of fear.

What happens when he listens to Corey Lewandowsky? What happens when Laura Loomer gets on the plane? This guy is not any different.

But congratulations to her. Good luck to her, because this is going to be a doozy. It's going to be worse.

But let's not pretend. Let's hopefully not go through months of what Trump are we going to see? I just said it: Let Trump be Trump. He was Trump. We're going to see that, no matter who works for him.

Now, ideally, what we'll see from someone like Susie that we didn't see from someone like Reince Priebus is to at least be able to exert a modicum of common sense. And hey, that's not a good idea.

Now, if he says, at the end of the day, I heard you. Now get out of here, that's fine. But that wasn't going on with his first round of, you know, team in 2016.

GORMAN: Look, I'll say this. You know, Tim O'Brien wrote, I think, a very deeply-sourced piece from kind of the inside of this campaign. And I think to Susie and Chris's credit, they stared down Lewandowski and other -- those other fringe votes.

I think Molly -- I think the way you put it is exactly right. It's not as much as controlling Trump as they view as protecting him from these outside people who, I think, want to use the position of the White House, the campaign back then, or just Trump for their own sorts of goals, whatever they may be. And I think --

HUNT: Wasn't that accusation that was leveled at lots of people in the end?

GORMAN: Exactly, but I think that was the wrong position based on people who try to discredit and get -- kind of weasel in a little bit there.

So, I think that is -- and they stared that down. And Trump sided with them, I think, rightly. So, I think that was a big testament. It shows, I think, that -- you know, that's --

WILLIAMS: For both of you, it's a really terrible way to speak about the American presidency and what we're getting from an individual we've had as president before.

There's been a template and a roadmap for letting Trump be Trump. I don't mean to keep picking on Molly's comment here. It's a fair one. But --

BALL: I didn't coin it.

WILLIAMS: Touche, touche.

BALL: I think Corey Lewandowsky.

WILLIAMS: Corey Lewandowsky coined it. I know we've got to run, but I think just --

REINES: I think "West Wing" coined it.

WILLIAMS: Everybody coined it. It's an English expression. We all -- nobody coined it.

HUNT: No one here is being original.

WILLIAMS: Nobody. It's all commonplace.

HUNT: On this particular thing.

(CROSSTALK)

REINES: --- will say.

WILLIAMS: I commend -- I commend the optimism and the hope that this all works out very well.

But giving the keys to an individual that we've seen the template of how it works out before, you know, I can hope that she does a great job here.

GORMAN: You can take it up with the American people.

WILLIAMS: I'm not -- I'm not disputing. This is not about the results of the election or anything else. It's more just how -- how do you expect the former president to govern when given a chance again? And there's enough data going back to even before 2015.

REINES: This isn't any great Rubik's Cube to figure out. I mean, Donald Trump is about as complicated to some of us, and to me, to figure out as a clogged toilet is to a plumber.

I mean, we've seen it. It hasn't happened in 130-something years where someone had it, lost it, came back to it. But we've seen it. And he's older, and he's more cantankerous, and he's more stubborn.

You know, why was Laura Loomer on the plane? Susie Wiles was the campaign manager. So, we can't say that she effectively did X, Y, or Z and so --

HUNT: But she did get her off the plane. Which doesn't happen, and didn't happen with Lewandowski. They did throw her off.

REINES: It's a pretty low bar. But OK. Letting Lara Loomer on but at least getting her off.

His impulses are his impulses. I -- to me, of the four that Donald Trump had in the first term, John Kelly was the most capable. I knew him a little bit.

And she strikes me as that kind of no-nonsense. I know how to make the place work. And I think there's going to be a lot of frustration, because Trump, you know, he's going to say what he wanted.

Because when you win, you think everything you did was great. So, having Laura on the flight to the debate might not have been as dumb as people thought.

HUNT: All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, who will control the House? Congressman Greg Glassman of Ohio joins us live as Democrats insist they still have a path to win. Skeptical.

Plus, dangerous wildfires ripping through California, forcing thousands from their homes.

And President Biden's final months in office after a lifetime of service.

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BIDEN: This country needs a leader, and leaders change attitudes about people.

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BIDEN: I've said many times, you can't love your country only when you win. You can't love your neighbor only when you agree. Something I hope we can do, no matter who you voted for, is see each other, not as adversaries, but as fellow Americans. Bring down the temperature.

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HUNT: President Biden addressing his party and the nation as he prepares to hand over the presidency back to the man he replaced four years ago.

During his speech in the Rose Garden, the president touted his accomplishments and pledged to carry out a peaceful transfer of power.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) BIDEN: I spoke with President-elect Trump to congratulate him on his victory. And I assured him that I'll direct my entire administration to work with his team to ensure a peaceful and orderly transition. That's what the American people deserve.

You're hurting. I hear you, and I see you. But don't forget: don't forget all that we accomplished. It's been an historic presidency. Not because I'm president, but because of what we've done, what you've done.

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HUNT: So, that was the president there, going out, fully -- I think the big question here as -- and there are all kinds of recriminations going on behind the scenes.

Frank Foer wrote this in "The Atlantic": "Earlier this fall, one of Joe Biden's closest aides felt compelled to tell the president the hard truth about Kamala Harris's run for the presidency, 'You have more to lose than she does.' And now he's lost that. Joe Biden cannot escape the fact that his four years in office paved the way for the return of Donald Trump. This is his legacy. Everything else is an asterisk."

Do you agree?

REINES: Not as harsh as that, and I hope it's wrong. Yes, I think it's important to put into context what happened. Because when people lose, they seem to think they did nothing right. And when people win, they say they did everything perfectly.

Donald Trump won, I think, 312-226 when it's all said and done. He -- Joe Biden won 306 to whatever. These numbers are pretty mirrored. Biden won by 7 million votes, Trump by 4 million now and counting. Let's just be gracious and say it's the same thing. These are pretty mirrored images.

After that election, the Republican Party didn't say, Oh, my God, it's back to square one. Are we on the wrong place on abortion? Are we on the wrong place on this or that?

In fact, they did the opposite. They went ahead and agreed (ph) with that.

Now, I think this was a difficult conversation -- election. At the end of the day, we lost because of inflation. I'm not dismissing anything else. But I think it's an interesting question and a hard argument to make.

If inflation were gone, and the economy was going the way it was, would these other things in isolation have had the same result?

HUNT: Do you think Biden should have run for reelection?

REINES: I think he made the right decision not to. I don't think anyone -- HUNT: No, no, back in 2022, when he had an opportunity to say, I'm going to -- I'm going to do the one term that people think that I promised them.

REINES: Well, he didn't, unfortunately. So, we all heard something he didn't say.

Second, it's really naive of us to have nominated someone in 2020 who was at the time, what, 76 and think, Oh, my God, the guy is actually going to continue to age.

[06:20:05]

There's no one that age who thinks, You know what? I can't do it anymore.

GORMAN: Another -- another --

REINES: It's good that he stepped aside. It was the right decision. But --

WILLIAMS: Think about what it would have looked like, had the president right out of the gate said that he wasn't running for reelection.

He would have rendered himself a lame duck from the first day. Either the first day he walked into office or two years in. And I think we would've been having a very different conversation now, when he still might have -- either he or whomever else might still have lost to Donald Trump.

You know, I just think it's a little bit -- sorry, go ahead.

GORMAN: No, I also wonder, pretend that 2022 was a normal midterm year of a president's first term, where they kind of get bombed. You know? They get throttled. It's a terrible night for Democrats. Does not change the calculus?

Because he has said, right, in a lot of ways, 2022 was -- spurred him to go and continue on. If they have a really bad night.

WILLIAMS: Yes. I just have a really hard time believing that everything would have been great for Democrats for four years if the man sitting in the White House from the day he walked in had said he wasn't running. He still would have owned it all.

BALL: I mean, a lot of Democrats that I've spoken to think that the time for him to announce he wasn't running for reelection was at the midterms, when Republicans won the midterms overall. They won the vote in the midterms. They just didn't do as well as some people had expected. And so, Democrats took that as a signal to continue.

But the other thing that I think is missing from this conversation is, you know, Biden is up there talking about a historic presidency and his legacy and all the things he accomplished.

But if inflation is what led to this result, I mean, that is -- in at least some part, due to the policies of this administration.

The policies of this administration created the inflation and the border chaos that people pointed to as the reasons that they were supporting Trump. So, to the extent that this election was a referendum on those issues, it was a referendum on the policies of this administration.

(CROSSTALK)

REINES: I believe that those things were a tsunami that couldn't control. I just want to -- and isolate, you know, look at what it was.

People in D.C., in particular, you know, they barraged the airs with $40 million worth of transit. They put -- you don't -- so, is the walkaway from this that President Trump has a mandate, a moral mandate to go after everything the Republicans don't like?

And I don't think that that's the case now any more than it was four years ago. I also don't think that that's an extrapolation that you can make if you're saying that these two races were the same. He won. That's great.

You know what? We're still a 50-50 nation that we were a week ago. And to earlier conversation about Susie Wiles, we'll see how he deals with that. And we all know how -- you know, in our hearts how he's going to deal with it. He's not going to try to redress it, and that's the problem.

HUNT: All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, what happens now? Michael Smerconish joins us to break down how the election unfolded and how President-elect Trump might tackle the promises he's made.

Plus --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Everything cut to shreds. We didn't have time to do anything but leave.

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HUNT: A massive wildfire raging in California, destroying dozens of homes.

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[06:25:06]

HUNT: Welcome back. Hundreds of firefighters still working to maintain a dangerous wildfire in Ventura County, California, that's left dozens without their homes.

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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: This is, like, surreal. I mean, I know we live in a fire danger area, but this is -- it came out of nowhere. It was so fast.

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HUNT: More than 130 homes have been destroyed, 14,000 people under evacuation orders. High winds have been fueling the fires, scorching more than 20,400 acres.

Let's get to our meteorologist, Derek van Dam, with the conditions that are expected today. Derek, good morning.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes, I just checked the latest containment numbers from the Mountain Fire, and they're at 5 percent containment.

So, hey, we'll take what we can get at this moment in time, because for a long period, it was at 0 percent containment. But the brave and heroic men and women who are on the ground fighting this fire as we speak are making slow but steady progress.

And the winds and the weather are also helping and cooperating, as well. Not as strong, with the Santa Ana wind event that we had in the middle of this work week. It's died down considerably, the relative humidity levels are coming up.

Look, there's still a red flag warning for the interior coastal mountain range across Southwestern California. And then there's a lot of smoke circulating in and around these counties, as well. Los Angeles into Ventura, San Bernardino. These areas will be inundated by thick smoke through the course of the day and into the early parts of the weekend, as well.

High fire risk along the Northeast into the mid-Atlantic. And then I want to point your attention to the major snowstorm that is unfolding across portions of Eastern Colorado and Northeastern new Mexico.

Look at these snowfall totals. That's right: three feet of snow in some locations, and it is still dumping. We've got plenty of snow on the way across this area. You can see, with that shading of white.

The unfortunate part of this is that it is stranding residents on the roadways, on some of the local highways. We've had the snowdrifts here that have just basically paralyzed some of these roadways and making it for a very difficult and dangerous travel conditions across the region -- Kasie.

HUNT: Winter has arrived in some parts of the United States.

VAN DAM: It has.

HUNT: Derek -- Derek van Dam for us this morning. Derek, thank you. Have a great weekend.

VAN DAM: Have a good weekend.

HUNT: All right. Coming up on CNN THIS MORNING, Republicans feeling confident about winning the House and pulling off a trifecta. If that happens, how would the party govern?

Plus, Democrats despairing, blindsided on election night.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We want to win, we have got to listen to voters. And boy, did they tell us loud and clear what they thought of us.

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