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CNN This Morning
Trump Announces Tom Homan, Former Acting ICE Director will be His Administration's Border Czar; Rick Scott, John Thune and John Cornyn Seek to Replace Mitch McConnell As Senate GOP Leader; Trump and Netanyahu on the Same Page About the Threat Iran Poses to Israel. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired November 11, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
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KASIE HUNT, ANCHOR, CNN THIS MORNING: It's Monday, November 11th, right now on CNN THIS MORNING --
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THOMAS HOMAN, FORMER ACTING ICE DIRECTOR: Families can be deported together.
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HUNT: Border czar. Donald Trump bringing back the man who was behind some of his most aggressive immigration policies during his first term. And this --
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SEN. RICK SCOTT (R-FL): We can't keep doing what we're doing. We have to be the change.
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HUNT: Leadership fight. Republican face-off. Who will be the next Senate Majority leader? And seeing eye-to-eye, Donald Trump and Israel's Prime Minister on the same page about the threat Iran poses. All right, 5:00 a.m. here on the east coast, a live look at the Washington monument. The White House there in shadow right in front on this Veterans Day.
Good morning, everyone, I'm Kasie Hunt, it's wonderful to have you with us. President-elect Donald Trump is adding a border czar to his new administration. In a "Truth Social" post late Sunday, Trump confirmed he is naming Tom Homan to oversee, quote, "our nation's borders". Homan served as acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under Trump before, and has strongly endorsed Trump's plans for mass deportations.
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HOMAN: Every President I worked for said they were going to secure the border, President Trump actually did it! I got a message to the mayors of illegal aliens that Joe Biden has released in our country in violation of federal law, you better start packing now.
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HUNT: And a key cabinet little position also off the board. Sources telling CNN that Trump has offered the role of U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations to Elise Stefanik. New York Congresswoman is currently the fourth highest-ranking House Republican. Her rise comes as Trump announces who will not be returning to a second term.
His first U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley will not be welcome back. She of course run in the primary against Trump earlier this year before dropping out and endorsing him. The returning President is moving quickly to fill out political appointees who will staff his administration from his Mar-a-Lago club which has once again become a hub for Republican powerbrokers.
CNN reporting allies like Elon Musk and Robert F. Kennedy Jr. have essentially moved into the beachfront resort, while nominees are being finalized, and an incoming controlled Senate signaling they're ready to approve his choices.
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SEN. JOHN BARRASSO (R-WY): And I expect the President to make bold decisions. He has to come up with actually 1,200 different appointees who get confirmed by the United States Senate. The Senate will be ready to look at every nominee that he makes.
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HUNT: All right, joining us now to discuss all of this is Catherine Lucey; White House reporter for "The Wall Street Journal", Catherine, good morning --
CATHERINE LUCEY, WHITE HOUSE REPORTER, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Good morning --
HUNT: Thank you so much for being here. So, Donald Trump, of course, has as noted there, dozens and dozens of decisions to make here, telling that the first one is really focused or one of the first ones, I should say, is focus on immigration and his plan to undertake these mass deportations. What does that tell us about what's next?
LUCEY: I mean, yes, that's right. This sends a signal that this is -- remains a top priority, that he is going to be very tough on immigration, he ran on this, he ran on the border, he has made those promises really clear. And I think it signals one that he is going to move forward with the things he talked about on his campaign, right?
That this is -- that he has committed to fulfilling some of these promises and that you know he is going to bring back some of these people that he has been talking about.
HUNT: Yes, so, Catherine, let's remind everyone, Tom Homan who was again the acting director of ICE, was interviewed recently on "60 Minutes", like right at the end of the campaign. And of course, one of the big questions around mass deportations is what happens when there are families that have mixed immigration status, right?
Someone in the home is undocumented and probably a minor child is a U.S. citizen. Let's watch how Homan answered that question. Take a look.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is there a way to carry out mass deportations without separating families?
HOMAN: Of course, there is. Families can be deported together.
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Why should a child who is an American citizen have to pack up and move to a country that they don't know?
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HOMAN: So, their parents actually entered the country illegally, had a child knowing he was in the country illegally. So, he created that crisis.
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HUNT: So, he's basically saying family separation possibly on the table here.
LUCEY: And this is a real anxiety for immigration advocates, obviously, we saw family separation in the first Trump administration and this unraveled a whole series of problems, children separated, there's a great difficulty in reuniting some of these kids with their parents.
You know, as you know, it was a -- it was a huge issue. So, there's a lot of anxiety I think about how exactly this would unfold, what would they do and how he suggests they would do it. I think there are a lot of steps yet we have to see in terms of what exactly his role is and how they're going to implement some of these things.
HUNT: Yes, so, let's talk briefly about Democrats who are of course, grappling with a pretty widespread electoral failure, right? I mean, they lost -- I think one of the biggest indicators for me is frankly the popular vote, the fact that Donald Trump broke 50 percent --
LUCEY: Yes --
HUNT: Which I think a lot of -- certainly -- I have said a number of times, oh, Trump has a ceiling, the perception among Republicans was Trump has a ceiling, that doesn't seem to have borne out, right? So, here was Ro Khanna talking on Sunday, he, of course -- a member typically of the party's progressive wing. But this was his perspective, watch.
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REP. RO KHANNA (D-CA): I think this was a winnable campaign. Even when he got out, Vice President Harris was 5 points up in some of the polls. Anyone who is saying now this was not a winnable campaign didn't say that back in August. The reason we didn't win ultimately, is we didn't listen enough to people on the ground.
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HUNT: So, lots of incriminations, of course. What do you make of what Ro Khanna says and this back-and-forth in the party?
LUCEY: Yes, I mean, there's all this finger-pointing and all these different theories of the case. I think what he's referring to is some Democrats now arguing there was no way for Harris to ever win, that this cake was baked much earlier when Biden decided to stay in the race and sort of that set off this whole series of problems.
HUNT: Right --
LUCEY: But the Democrats failed on so many levels in this election. They lost basically every demographic group, as you said, they lost the popular vote and they seemed to lose the messaging war entirely. So, the amount sort of reckoning they have to do around who they are as a party and where they're going is pretty significant.
And I think they all acknowledge that. They don't actually -- they seem to have no way to connect with a lot of folks with an economic message, and they have to figure that out.
HUNT: Yes, this of course, Nancy Pelosi, the former House Speaker saying that she doesn't -- she does think that people talked about kitchen table issues --
LUCEY: They certainly didn't hear it.
HUNT: Right --
LUCEY: If they did --
HUNT: Right --
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HUNT: That's the -- that's the bottom line. Catherine Lucey for us this morning, Catherine, thank you, really appreciate it. All right, coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, the fight for control. Republican senators vying to be the next majority leader. Who Donald Trump says he wants to see in that role.
Plus, in your morning round-up, dangerous wildfires burning. Crews now working to get a blaze under control in the northeast, we'll take you there. And is a ceasefire in Gaza on hold? Why some critics claim Israel has no incentive to get that done. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JAKE SULLIVAN, U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: The Israeli government wants to do a deal to get its citizens back home. I don't think it's doing that deal for American politics. I think it's doing that deal to try to secure Israel.
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HUNT: All right, welcome back. As Donald Trump prepares to return to the White House, Israel is intensifying its strikes on Gaza. At least, 41 Palestinians were killed by Israeli strikes on Sunday. At least, half of those killed were children. One of the targets, a home in northern Gaza.
The IDF tells CNN it was a quote, "terrorist infrastructure site". Because of the close relationship between Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu, critics of Israel claim the Prime Minister has no incentive to agree to a ceasefire and hostage deal just yet.
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: What makes you think in these final days of the Biden administration that Benjamin Netanyahu would agree to peace in Gaza or agree to peace in Lebanon and not hold onto that political capital for the new President?
SULLIVAN: Well, Prime Minister Netanyahu will make his decisions and he'll speak to his decisions. Here's what I see, first in Gaza, it really -- today is not Israel that is standing in the way of a ceasefire and hostage deal, it is Hamas.
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HUNT: On Sunday, the Israeli Prime Minister confirmed he's spoken with President-elect Trump three times in recent days, saying that they quote, "see eye-to-eye on the Iranian threat in all its aspects". Max Foster joins us live now from London. Max, good morning to you. The timing of this, of course, possibly very much dependent on when Donald Trump takes office. Is Netanyahu basically waiting to undertake any ceasefire or hostage release deal until then?
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR & CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's difficult to tell, isn't it? Because Benjamin Netanyahu is very good at the optics and anything that he puts out there is -- shows him in a positive light and certainly, there's a huge amount of common ground between Netanyahu and Donald Trump with their view about what's happening in the region and a threat from Iran.
But when it comes to agreeing to a peace deal, it all comes down to detail in the Middle East, and can these two men actually agree on the detail? Because there is difference in their views. I mean, Donald Trump quite recently said he didn't believe or wasn't pushing for a regime-change in Iran, which is absolutely fundamental to what Netanyahu believes is the answer to a future peace in the Middle East.
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So, when it comes down to the details, will they get bogged down in it? I think the big risk for Netanyahu is impatience, really, on the side of Donald Trump, because he's made it very clear priority is to bring peace to that region. He wants it done quickly. And that's very difficult to do in the Middle East. So, there's going to be -- have to be a lot of give from Netanyahu's side on the details, I think.
HUNT: Yes, difficult, if not obviously. Physically impossible for centuries now. Max, one of the things that, and you alluded to this, Donald Trump has talked about it on the campaign trail over and over again, was preventing a World War III is the phrase that he uses. Just a quick reminder, this was him in Reading, Pennsylvania. Watch.
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DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I will stop the chaos in the Middle East and we would have peace in the Middle East, you would have peace, instead you have all of the death that is taking place. It's terrible. And I will prevent World War III because you're just around the corner for World War III, and this would be a war like no other. This would be a nuclear war.
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HUNT: So, that's how Trump talks about it. I think my question for you is, how do -- how does western Europe see that for example as they kind of grapple with the new geopolitical realities of this?
FOSTER: Well, you know, if you speak to academics, World War III is a risk, but not necessarily because specifically of Ukraine or the Middle East or what's happening in Asia-Pacific. It's somehow they interact with each other and they blow up or there's a miscalculation and that all comes together.
And ultimately, when you talk about World War III, it really is -- it does sort of come between China and the U.S., because you know, it's China's support of Russia that would give it its power. And in the Middle East, you know, you've got Iran which is aligned with Russia, which is supported by China.
There are many different sort of movements here. He was referring to World War III directly in terms of the Middle East. Would there be a World War III if the Middle East blows out of proportion? A lot of experts say that wouldn't be the case. But you saw that miscalculation and you know, the world order that we've talked about, you do see, you know, these alignments that are crossing from Europe into Asia, and it is concerning that you've got that sort of China access supported by North Korea and Iran, and Russia on one side and a weakening Europe on America's side.
HUNT: Yes, really, extraordinarily complicated, obviously, and I just will say, this is something that we heard from Republican voters over and over and over again that clearly they trust Trump to prevent a World War III, so-to-speak. Obviously, we're all about to find out how that -- how that question is going to be answered --
FOSTER: Well, I think a lot -- what a lot of -- you know, obviously, there was a lot of diplomats on this side of the pond were very concerned about Donald Trump coming in and what it meant for international diplomacy. But what you're hearing since he got -- you know, he won the election, is that this is someone you can do deals with and make direct transactions with.
So, I think -- but now there's a reality of trying to figure out what you would do with a Trump administration, and looking back in his previous administration, was it warmongering? Probably not. You know, a lot of diplomats saying actually it was a very peaceful presidency. So, is kind of working through all of -- how it might plan out a future, which is the difficult part with Donald Trump because we don't always know where he is going.
HUNT: We do not. Max Foster, always love having you, thank you so much for being here, see you soon. All right, after the break here on CNN THIS MORNING, dangerous fire conditions from coast-to-coast as wildfires rage out-of-control in drought-stricken areas of California and New Jersey. Plus, control of the House still up for grabs, but Republicans are inching closer and closer to a clean sweep.
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HUNT: All right, 22 minutes past the hour, here's your morning round- up. It's Veterans Day in America. President Biden and Vice President Harris will participate in a wreath-laying ceremony this morning at the tomb of the unknown soldier at Arlington National Cemetery. The Veterans Day event, their first public appearance together since last week's election.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor has no plans to step down from the Supreme Court, according to people close to her. Some Democrats have suggested she should leave her post so that Biden can replace her before he leaves office. Sotomayor is 70 years old and the most senior liberal justice on the court.
A New Jersey man charged with sparking a 350-acre wildfire over the weekend. Officials say the man used an illegal shotgun round that creates a flame-thrower effect when fired. That fire now under control. Meanwhile, a separate wildfire burning more than 2,500 acres along the New York-New Jersey border is burning out of control. An 18- year-old forest -- volunteer forest ranger died battling the flames.
All right, time now for weather, today, rain in the northeast lessening the fire risk in some parts. Conditions once again getting concerning in California where the mountain fire is burning. Let's get to our meteorologist Elisa Raffa with those fires burning across the country. Elisa, good morning. ELISA RAFFA, METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. We have been tracking
wildfires in parts of New York and New Jersey all weekend, 3,000 acres burning in that Jennings Creek Fire, only 10 percent contained. We did have some beneficial rain moving through on the overnight, and it's still kind of working its way across the eastern parts of Long Island and Massachusetts really light.
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You could see though, at the site of that fire where we had some of that rain come through overnight, but it didn't really amount to much. We got well less than an inch of rain there, just a few tenths of an inch. So, when you talk about weather effects on wildfire, it's the strong winds spread the fires, pick up the embers and send them other places.
About a half an inch of rain can stop the spread of wildfires, again, kind of helped on the overnight, but you really need more than 2 inches to really start to extinguish these fires when you have drought conditions. It's the drought conditions, you've got more than half of the northeast in drought conditions since the beginning of Fall.
Because we've gotten really not much rain since September 1st, this rain deficit in so many of these places in the northeast is more than 8 inches, 7 or 8 inches. So, really needing some of that rain. Now, the wind-gusts really start to pick up as we go into tomorrow so that fire risk could increase on Tuesday, the amount of fire again winds are picking up there, so, we need to worry about that, that's still not contained in that wall. Kasie?
HUNT: All right, Elisa Raffa with that update for us this morning, Elisa, thank you very much. All right, still ahead on CNN THIS MORNING, the President-elect's plans for Ukraine and Russia. Donald Trump has vowed to end the war in one day. But what would it take to see that through? Plus, the race to replace Republican Senate leader Mitch McConnell, a role that will be one of the most powerful positions in a Republican-dominated Washington.
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SCOTT: We have to be the change. That's what Donald Trump elected to do to be a change. That's what business guys do.
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