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CNN This Morning

Trump's Second Term, Policy or Payback; FEMA Staffer Fired After Telling Hurricane Recovery Teams in Florida to Avoid Homes With Trump Signs; Wildfire Conditions Along East and West Coasts. Aired 6- 6:30a ET

Aired November 11, 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 Monday, November 11th.

Right now, on CNN This Morning, policy or payback? With just over two months until inauguration day, Trump is talking unity after campaigning on retribution.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): The working class of this country is angry and they have a reason to be angry.

HUNT: -- pointing fingers. Democrats ask what went wrong and what comes next after their crushing defeat.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. BYRON DONALDS (R-FL): Anybody involved with that should be fired immediately.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: -- a FEMA employee fired after telling hurricane relief workers to skip homes with Trump signs.

[06:00:02]

And then --

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DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you believe that the 2024 election was free and fair?

REP. JIM JORDAN (R-OH): I do. I do.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: -- disappearing concerns, Republican election fraud claims taking a backseat in the wake of Trump's victory.

All right, it's 6:00 A.M. on the nose here on the east coast, a live look at the Washington Monument and, of course, the White House there in shadow in the foreground on this Veterans Day as we honor the service and sacrifice made by our nation's military veterans. Take a minute, say thank you today.

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

An eye for an eye, Donald Trump once said that was his favorite Bible verse. And now has he's been swept back into power, the question is whether he'll make good on this campaign promise.

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DONALD TRUMP, U.S. PRESIDENT-ELECT: And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution. I am your retribution.

Well, revenge does take time. I will say that.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It does.

TRUMP: And sometimes revenge can be justified, Phil. I have to be honest. Sometimes it can.

Well, I said my retribution is going to be success. We're going to make this country successful again, because right now it's a failing nation. My retribution is going to be success.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Well, he's had success. Those repeated promises of retribution, though, do seem to contrast with the tone the president-elect struck on election night.

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TRUMP: It's time to put the divisions of the past four years behind us. It's time to unite.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Time to unite, he says. Fair enough. But it didn't take long after those comments, just 55 hours, The New York Times' Peter Baker points out, before Trump was calling for an investigation into someone or something that made him angry. In this case, people, he says, are spreading rumors that he may sell his social media platform, Truth Social.

Trump writing on that platform, quote, I hereby request that the people who have set off these fake rumors or statements and who may have done so in the past be immediately investigated by the appropriate authorities.

In the Times, Baker goes on to write this, quote, his momentary nod to unity on election night led to some predictions that he may ease off the menacing threats. But that may underestimate the depth of his resentment and desire for retaliation after the multiple impeachments, investigations, indictments and lawsuits aimed at him.

Allies expect him to pursue at least some of the targets he has singled out. And even if he holds back on some, his mercurial nature means that no one can assume he would not change his mind, creating an atmosphere of intimidation that may inhibit vocal dissent.

Trump's defenders have been insisting revenge isn't the plan.

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VIVEK RAMASWAMY (R), FORMER 2024 PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm going to tell you what Donald Trump has said on this time and again, success will be our retribution. Success will be our vengeance. That's a direct line from Donald Trump. It's a beautiful sentiment. And I do think that success is unifying. Nothing's going to unite this country more than economic growth.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: And my colleague, Dana Bash, asked Republican Jim Jordan if he supports Trump using the Justice Department to go after people he disagrees with.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: -- who disagreed --

JORDAN: He didn't do it his first term. What I support is stopping --

BASH: Right, but this is his second term.

JORDAN: What I support is stopping this lawfare, stopping this political targeting, political cases.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Some of Trump's upcoming decisions, of course, could shed light on this question, most notably, who he decides to choose as his attorney general.

But, broadly speaking, the reporter who has literally written the book on Donald Trump and has covered him for decades, Maggie Haberman, says this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MAGGIE HABERMAN, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Is he serious about retribution? He's been talking about retribution or revenge pretty consistently over the last, you know, two years, but certainly most of his life. So, yes, I expect that will be a thing.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Most of his life.

Joining us now to discuss Frank Foer, staff writer for the Atlantic, Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst, national political reporter for Axios, Meghan Hayes, former director of message planning for the Biden White House, and Matt Gorman, Republican strategist, former senior adviser to Tim Scott's presidential campaign. Welcome to all of you on this, I guess, the first Monday of the Trump transition, right? Is that where we are?

Frank Foer, give us the big picture here, because this question of what is Donald Trump going to do, how is he going to use the levers of power that he is about to take over to execute on the promises that he has made, I mean, how do you see it?

FRANK FOER, STAFF WRITER, THE ATLANTIC: So, they're the symbolic dangers of going after the likes of Liz Cheney and Joe Biden and whoever he considers to be his political enemies of the moment. But then there's the bigger picture, as you point out, which is that there are cabinet departments and agencies that have cultures that have been built up over 100 years that are going to be decimated because there's a plan to change not just the way that they implement one policy or another policy, but to change these departments, to change the face of the federal government forever, so that it serves their long-term ideological objectives.

[06:05:15]

And it's not just about one guy doing and his grievances at this point, because there's a whole class of people, whether it's the fossil fuels industry or people who are ideologues who want to destroy the rule of law in this country, as it's been practiced, who are descending on this administration and have implanted their tendrils really deep inside this transition.

HUNT: Matt Gorman, one of the things I thought was interesting over the weekend was that Republican supporters of Donald Trump and Jim Jordan and Vivek Ramaswamy seem to like want to walk away from the retribution idea, right, and sort of soft pedal it really. I mean, Vivek, we played what Trump said there, my retribution will be a -- success will be my retribution. Like, okay, he had success, right? He delivered on that. But what is your sense of the tolerance among other Republicans for what Trump may do here and what that says about it?

MATT GORMAN, FORMER TIM SCOTT PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN SENIO ADVISER: I think it's much more policy focused in a lot of respects where, look, he believes, him and his supporters believe he came in on a mandate with a popular vote victory, sweeping the electoral swing states. So, you will see a great tolerance when it comes to the economy and immigration.

I don't think suddenly Liz Cheney is going to be in danger, any of that sort of thing, and anything -- I think that's a lot of kind of ridiculousness and there hasn't been specified when what you will see, though, is immigration policy, economic policy that he's been talking about for years be pushed pretty aggressively. And I think that him and his supporters and those in the Congress believe he has a fundamental mandate to do exactly that.

I think a lot of the retribution stuff, the personal stuff, it's probably overblown. We'll see. But I think policy-wise, that's absolutely the case.

ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, that's a lot of hope, right? I mean, the line from a lot of the Trump surrogates right now is, well, he didn't do it in the first term. Well, it wasn't for lack of trying. Bill Barr and Jeff Sessions have said that, you know, and you just can go through his old Twitter, that he tried to call for investigations.

So, I think there's a lot of a lot of Republicans are hoping he won't, but they actually don't know if he's not going to.

HUNT: Have you talked to Democrats who are afraid that he is going to come after them in some way?

THOMPSON: Yes, and even Democrats that don't, I don't necessarily expect that anything will come of it. I think there's a lot of Democrats, especially in the mid level. you know, mid level aids or even just like campaign aides that, you know, are afraid, you know, lawyer fees, even just like putting them on the verge of bankruptcy.

MEGHAN HAYES, FORMER BIDEN WHITE HOUSE DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING: Yes. I think that is a fear. I think when you get hauled up to Congress and some of these investigations, you're no longer in the government, so the government's not paying. There's no lawyer. So, it is very expensive when you do these investigations. And I think that they're going to use it as pawns when it's really people's lives.

And you have 30-something, very young, 30-something-year-olds that are going to -- you know, it's going to take a financial toll. But I am hopeful that is the policy and having Susie Wiles, I think, is a good sign to Democrats, that like maybe you are going to run something that's more traditional. But to your point, it's all just a wait and see of, you know, how he continues to move forward with some of his enemies.

FOER: Right. But in a department, like Homeland Security, where they have big plans to do some version of mass deportation, there have been lists that have been published that show mid level people who have collaborated with the bad guys, in their view, who are just simply career people who've done their jobs and maybe received an award from the secretary of the department for having done their jobs. And they're targeted for retribution.

HUNT: What does it look like, I mean, at that level, Alex, like because you do have a lot of these -- Kash Patel is a name that comes to mind, for example, like people who have focused a lot on what's inside the government and extent. I mean, it seems like Frank's arguing that this retribution is going to extend past the political enemies and into these like policy areas in a way that we haven't seen before.

THOMPSON: Yes. There are two different versions of retribution. One is what we were just talking about with Justice Department investigations. The other version is just firing people en masse, which I think is also what Frank is talking about. And I think that is almost certain to happen, because that's also what Trump ran on.

Trump has basically said, and like they've made it very clear, that they view the federal bureaucracy as sort of an unauthorized fourth branch of government, that they are going to disrupt in a huge way. You are going to see the biggest change of the executive branch we've seen in our lifetimes.

GORMAN: Absolutely, right? And I can make the case for easily that in a lot of respects. People voted for some sort of change in that branch. That is not personal retribution. That's not him going after people who voted against him. That is, in many ways, a cleanup of the federal bureaucracy. It might be dramatic, but absolutely, it's more policy-based than anything else.

HAYES: I'm not sure that people voted for that. I'm not sure people understand how the federal government works. I'm not saying that they are not voting for saving money in the budget, but I just don't think that people understand how some of these agencies work, how they're broken down, how there's different sub agencies, and all these other people, and to your point of people who have been part of the border security and their career employees that have worked there and all of a sudden they're going to get fired because they did something that the Biden administration wanted. They're doing their job. They're not there -- they're there to execute. They're not there to enact.

THOMPSON: Well, the Trump administration did feel that some of the federal bureaucracy did undermine him in the first term, and there's evidence they did.

[06:10:04]

I mean, you had, you know, people writing anonymous op-eds, right, saying that they were like, sort of subtly dragging their feet for what Trump wanted to do. Trump feels that, and so that's why you're going -- now, the critics will say, he's going to politicize the federal bureaucracy. And Trump is like, well, I'm going to make the federal bureaucracy obey my orders.

GORMAN: And work, right? It needs to be efficient, it needs to actually work, right? The boarder has not been working, period. So, if they can't get the job done, they need to go.

HUNT: All right. It looks like we're going to have a lot to talk about for the next few years.

Okay, ahead here on CNN This Morning, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis calling for an investigation after FEMA fires an employee who told workers to avoid homes with Trump signs during hurricane relief efforts.

Plus, soul searching, Democrats weigh in on how their party needs to change. And the great Dana Bash joins us with more from her conversation with Congressman Jim Jordan about what comes next in the second Trump White House.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Ultimately, will it be 15 to 20 million as he promised on the campaign trail?

JORDAN: Well, we will see. What I know is if you send a message, if you send that message, I think that is so good for securing our border, which the country wants, just the opposite of what the Biden administration did.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:15:00]

HUNT: All right. Welcome back. A FEMA employee now fired after advising members of their hurricane response team in Florida to skip homes with signs supporting Donald Trump out front.

In a statement announcing the firing, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell says this, quote, this was reprehensible. I want to be clear to all of my employees and the American people this type of behavior and action will not be tolerated at FEMA, and we will hold people accountable if they violate these standards of conduct.

On top of the firing, FEMA is also sending a new team to the impacted region to contact people who may not have been reached. Florida's Republican Governor Ron DeSantis announced over the weekend his administration is investigating the incident, and Florida GOP Congressman Byron Donalds is calling for a change to FEMA in Trump's second term.

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DONALDS: Anybody involved with that should be fired immediately. Not asked to resign, not brought in front of a congressional hearing, they should be fired immediately. We are not going to have a country where we're going to decide who gets help and who doesn't based upon who you support politically or what you look like or anything else.

Secondarily, when it comes to FEMA, my recommendation for the Trump transition team is that FEMA becomes a standalone agency that directly reports to the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: All right. Meghan Hayes, I mean, this is the kind of thing that prompts some of this backlash, and, I mean, rightfully so, in this case.

HAYES: One hundred percent, they should be fired, and if they're not fired yet, Trump will definitely fire them. So, I mean, they're not going to be there, but this is not something that the president would stand for, or Deanne Criswell would stand for. I mean, she's been really great. I've traveled with her on a lot of disaster trips.

Helping people is in the foremost of her mind, and also what the president has said many times, he's a president for all Americans, he goes to these disaster sites all the time. So, I'm not sure where they got the direction, but, absolutely, they should be fired. There's no question.

HUNT: They have been -- this person in question has been fired. Whether there may be more firings or not is a separate question.

GORMAN: All we talked about just last couple minutes ago, I mean, a lot of stuff, it feeds into that. And I will say this, we were on the show during a lot of those hurricanes. We were very nervous about people there listening to the government, people there taking what they had to say really with the authority and the understanding it needed to, and things like that, this has a lasting effect, creates ripples in the pond that cause a loss of trust in a lot of respects. And, look, again, everybody that was involved should be fired.

And, look, I don't know enough about the bureaucracy when it comes to FEMA to endorse whether Donald's point or not. Common sense, it makes sense that FEMA should be one of the few agencies that kind of bypasses a cabinet area and goes right to the president, but we'll see. But, certainly, some things need to change.

HAYES: So, Administrator Criswell does have a direct line. She travels on every one of these disaster trips with the president. They are in constant contact during these sort of things. And I know that they're also with the National Security Council. They work very closely. So, I do think that there is much more interagency flow than some of the other -- yes, than some of the other bureaus would have. But I do agree with you that this is not good for government, and also this is something -- these people need help, and it is our job to help them.

THOMPSON: Yes. I mean, scandalous behavior, and it feeds into two Trump narratives. One is that, you know, we were talking before, the bureaucracy's not on your side, but also, at the time, we were talking about the hurricanes that, you know, everyone insisted that everything that could be done was being done for these people. And this is one -- it's just one example, but it feeds into that Trump's narrative, even as he was himself spreading falsehoods, the thing is that clearly not everything was being done.

HUNT: Yes, right.

FOER: Well, it's also -- it sets an egregious precedent, which if any other person within the government wants to exploit it and exact retribution in the other sort of way, neutrality is the highest principle for the federal government, that it has to treat all of its citizenry equally regardless of how they vote in an election. And when that gets transgressed, we're actually messing with things that are extremely fundamental. So, surely, it is an outlier case, but it needs to be punished as if it's not in order to create a precedent for this never happening again.

HUNT: All right. Ahead here on CNN This Morning, so much needed rain here in the northeast where there's wildfires burning, the latest on the fires we're seeing from coast to coast.

Plus, Democrats in despair, it's worse than disarray, after sweeping Election Day defeats.

[06:20:03]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

HUNT: All right. Welcome back. Time now for weather, rainfall today in the northeast tamping down wildfire risks over the weekend. One wildfire near the New York-New Jersey border turned deadly, killing an 18-year-old volunteer forest ranger. And out west in California, conditions once again getting concerning as the mountain fire burns.

Let's get to our meteorologist Elisa Raffa with more on this. Elisa, good morning.

ELISA RAFFA, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. We've been tracking wildfires in New York and New Jersey all weekend. The Jennings Creek fire has burned about 3,000 acres, 10 percent contained right now. We did have some light rain move through overnight.

[06:25:00]

You could see some of these showers still exiting eastern Long Island and Massachusetts. But we did get some of that rain right over the fire location overnight.

Now, it didn't amount to much. Rain totals are, you know, well less than an inch, not really finding too much of that rain. When it comes to weather and wildfires, those winds will spread the wildfires, because they could pick up the embers and drop them somewhere else. When you get about a half an inch of rain, it can stop the spread of fire. So, that's kind of what we've found overnight. But you need really more than two inches of rain to really start to extinguish these fires when you have such severe drought conditions.

And that's been the case for the northeast. I mean, more than half of the northeast has drought conditions, I mean stretching from Maine down to the Mid-Atlantic there, including parts of New Jersey. And it's because we've been extremely dry since the start of fall on September 1st. These rain deficits are six, seven, over eight inches in New York. So, just, again, incredibly dry, those ground conditions, just with some drought conditions.

The mountain fire's still burning. Not much containment there, more than 20 acres burned. The concern now today is that we have wind alerts that have been issued for the Sta. Barbara area there, just north of Los Angeles, including that fire where these wind gusts could top, you know, 50 miles per hour today. Again, that could spread some of those fire conditions to something that we'll need to watch closely. But, again, wind gusts will continue to pick up today. We had a front come through and that's what's kicking these winds. The fire weather conditions there also continued through Tuesday. Kasie?

HUNT: All right. Elisa Raffa for us this morning, Elisa, thanks very much.

All right, still ahead here on CNN this morning, Democrats looking forward, trying to figure out who will lead their party into the future. A friend of the show, Mark McKinnon, joins us to talk about what's next.

Plus, Dana Bash joins with more of her interview with Congressman Jim Jordan on where GOP election integrity concerns stand now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Do you believe that the 2024 election was free and fair?

JORDAN: I do. I do.

BASH: And why was it different from 2020 when he lost?

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:30:00]