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CNN This Morning
Trump Picks RFK Jr. As Health & Human Services Secretary; NYT: Musk Held Secret Meeting With Iran's U.N. Ambassador; Pentagon Receives Hundreds Of Reports Of UFO Sightings; Jennings Creek Fire 75 Percent Contained In NJ, 69 Percent Contained In NY. Aired 5-5:30a ET
Aired November 15, 2024 - 05:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:00:34]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: It's Friday, November 15th.
Right now on CNN THIS MORNING:
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Won the White House, recaptured the Senate. And now, as of today, recaptured the House.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Victory lap. Donald Trump celebrating big Republican wins as he finalizes his new administration.
And this --
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ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: There's no vaccine that is, you know, safe and effective.
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HUNT: From vaccine skeptic to Health and Human Services secretary, how Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s appointment could impact patients and their doctors.
And later --
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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): House Democrats are going to be able to evaluate where we are and where we need to go.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Moving forward, how do Democrats regroup after their devastating losses on Election Day?
(MUSIC) HUNT: All right, 5:00 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at the United States Capitol on this Friday morning.
Good morning everyone. We made it to Friday in the first full week of the second Donald Trump transition. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
Donald Trump making another provocative choice for his cabinet. He has picked vaccine skeptic and conspiracy theorist Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. as his health and human services secretary.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KENNEDY: I do believe that autism does come from vaccines.
COVID-19 is targeted to attack Caucasians and Black people. The people who are most immune are Ashkenazi Jews and Chinese.
Wi-Fi radiation is -- does all kinds of bad things, including causing cancer.
Some of these mass shootings that we're seeing in this country may be related to this new -- these new class of drugs of SSRIs and benzos.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
HUNT: Kennedy ended his long shot bid for the presidency as an independent back in August. And then he endorsed Donald Trump. He joined the campaign under the banner make America healthy again.
Trump touted his choice during an event at Mar-a-Lago last night.
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TRUMP: Another one who's another great mind and a great guy and so popular and I think he's right -- he wants to make people healthy.
I just looked at the news reports. People like you, Bobby. Don't get too popular, Bobby.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: The president-elect also making an announcement during the event naming, North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum as his interior secretary.
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TRUMP: Burgum, Burgum, he's from North Dakota. He's going to be announced tomorrow for a very big position. So everybody's waiting. There he is.
Hi, Doug.
Actually, he's going to head the Department of Interior and he's going to be fantastic. All right. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Trump is also zeroing in on another choice in the Department of Justice, where loyalty is clearly a metric for any top pick.
Trump selecting his personal criminal defense attorney, Todd Blanche, to become deputy attorney general. Blanche represented Trump during his New York hush money trial, which ended in the president-elect being found guilty of 34 felony counts.
If Trump has his way, Blanche will join Matt Gaetz at the top of the Justice Department. Gaetz, of course, resigned from Congress after Trump picked him to be attorney general. His resignation effectively ending a house ethics investigation into sexual misconduct allegations.
Some Republican senators now saying they want to see that report.
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SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): I think there should not be any limitation on the Senate Judiciary Committee's investigation including whatever the House Ethics Committee has generated.
SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): I barely know Gaetz. All I know is he likes picking fights on social media. But at the end of the day, you got to have the votes and you better have the resume. That's how this process works.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. Joining us now to talk about all this, Kevin Frey, Washington correspondent for Spectrum News New York 1.
Kevin, good morning to you.
KEVIN FREY, WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, SPECTRUM NEWS NY1: Good morning, Kasie.
HUNT: The tone there from Thom Tillis who's set to be really one of the people at the center of this, all of these confirmation fights really kind of illustrates, where this may or may be going, right? I mean, these confirmation fights are going to be quite something. And in some ways, the hits just keep on coming now with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
FREY: Yeah, I mean, the question is what is kind of the next shoe to fall if you will, in terms of what the next choice is and how that explodes on Capitol Hill to some extent.
[05:05:08]
Notably with Tillis, of course, he's facing reelection in a matter of years, and he is representing a true battleground state in some sense because of the -- well, he's from North Carolina, so he does have to thread this particular needle where he has to one be subservient to Trump, but also stake his own independent grasp.
I mean, its extraordinary how this has kind of come to shape, but at the same time Trump kind of forecasted a lot of this, especially after his own frustrations with his last cabinet, where they were not necessarily willing to line up behind him all the time particularly the AG, the Defense Department, providing some guardrails that he expressed a lot of frustration with.
HUNT: Right. So let's -- let's talk big picture a little bit here about Robert F. Kennedy Jr. And the Department of Health and Human Services, because -- I mean, there had been some suggestions. Obviously, Trump was very clear he was going to put give Kennedy some sort of role. But there had been a sense before the election that perhaps it wouldn't be a Senate confirmable position, it would not be the secretary job, it would be something else. Now we know that's not the case.
So this is what our Stephen Collinson writes: But the president- elect's decision to put RFK Jr. in charge of the health of 350 million Americans, despite his stances on vaccines, that contradict science based research, it's likely to ignite a new debate about the potential real world implications of the second Trump term that could -- that will begin in January. It could impact the medicines Americans use, the treatments and drug therapies that are approved, the inoculations used to protect the country's school kids from diseases like measles and the food that everyone eats.
If Kennedy is confirmed and another pathogen emerges, causes a pandemic, in the next four years, he will be in charge of fighting it. And the implications here are enormous.
FREY: Yeah, I mean, it's kind of astounding when you tick through all of that. Now, one of the things you've seen is some Republicans, as we kind of now enter into this process of how do they process all the information you just laid out and then decide whether or not to vote for him is that some are shifting their glances to some of his more non-controversial views, be it about combating chronic diseases, be it trying to make food healthier for school students but at the same time, these are kind of the underlying concerns. You see.
I mean, one of the things that's extraordinary that kind of fits into the pattern not only is it loyalty, it's also kind of in some sense a lot of his picks seem to have a great deal of disdain for the agency that they would be then tasked with running, be it the Pentagon thinking it's too woke, be it, Gaetz, who has his own frustrations with the DOJ, given his own investigation by the DOJ at one point. So it fits into that pattern as well.
HUNT: One of course, piece of this that RFK Jr. is looking at is the ingredients in food which, you know, I think there -- there clearly, you know, Jared polis is a Democratic governor of Colorado. I think his -- what he was talking about was vaccine mandates. But food quality, the number of ingredients in food, it's -- it is something that kind of crosses party lines that there are a lot of, you know, people who are interested in eating more organic, et cetera.
RFK Jr. had his own commentary on Donald Trump's diet recently. Let's -- let's just watch what RFK had to say about that quickly.
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KENNEDY: The stuff that he eats is really like bad. It's not -- campaign food I always bad, but the food that goes onto that airplane is like just poison.
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HUNT: Just poison. Now, of course, Trump is famously known as loving, you know, McDonald's and other, you know, fast --
FREY: I remind myself that I was on here on McDonald's day, the last time a couple of weeks ago when he was at working the drive thru window.
HUNT: The fry window. Yeah, I mean, it's kind of -- I don't -- I don't think Trump really, really likes to be criticized, but it's interesting to hear Kennedy say that.
FREY: Yeah, I mean, I think there is a degree of -- I mean, I -- one any nutritionist would probably not disagree with him on that particular mark, that we know Trump's diet to be very focused on fast foods, and he seems to lavish and enjoy them.
Is he going to get a pass for this sort of criticism? Probably because it was said in jest, and also because he has been otherwise rather subservient to what Trump wants ever since he has joined the ticket.
HUNT: Hence -- yeah, or since he since he endorsed for sure.
FREY: Yeah. Sorry. No. It's okay.
Kevin Frey, thank you very much for being with us on this Friday. Great to have you.
All right. Coming up here on CNN this morning Republicans taking full control of Washington. Democratic Congressman Greg Landsman will be here to discuss where his party should go from here.
Plus, the bill is due. Today is the deadline for Rudy Giuliani to turn over his assets.
And Elon Musk, the diplomat, his role in defusing tensions with Iran.
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TRUMP: I wanted Iran to be very successful. I just don't want him to have a nuclear weapon.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Right.
TRUMP: Because that's the real threat.
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[05:14:08]
HUNT: All right. Welcome back.
Elon Musk had a secret meeting with Iran's ambassador to the U.N. earlier this week to reportedly discuss defusing tensions between the U.S. and Tehran. "The New York Times", citing two Iranian officials, say -- says that the meeting lasted more than an hour and took place at an undisclosed location in New York. Just last week, Musk joined President-elect Trump on a call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
All that and Musk's growing presence at Mar-a-Lago raising questions domestically and around the world about the role that the globe's richest man might play in Trump's second term.
The president-elect has already tasked the tech CEO with leading a new agency dubbed the Department of Government Efficiency or DOGE, for short.
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TRUMP: We have a man who has a seriously high IQ.
[05:10:00]
You know, I'm a person that believes in high IQs, and his is about as high as they get.
Elon -- what a job. What a job he does. He's a great -- and he happens to be a really good guy. You know, he likes this place. I can't get him out of here. He just likes this place.
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HUNT: I can't get him out of here.
Let's go live to London and bring in CNN's Max Foster.
Max, good morning. It's wonderful to see you.
These meetings that and phone calls, et cetera, this latest revelation that he met with the Iranian U.N. ambassador, pretty remarkable as Musk clearly has designs on a global profile that really, in some ways certainly transcends, sends his -- his business interests to perhaps something that is more political. What does this mean in some ways, he's acting like a shadow foreign secretary?
MAX FOSTER, CNN INTERNATIONAL ANCHOR: Well, he's -- you know, in recent times, he's got very involved, hasn't he, in certain European events. And he makes those views very clear on Twitter and you have had, you know leaders and officials responding to that in these public spats. I mean, one, I think of here in the U.K. was attack we had in the north of England involving a stabbing in young children. He got involved in that. And there's a real sense that he shouldn't have any say here.
He's -- he's not a British official -- and he's not an elected us official either.
So I think seeing him as part of the administration is concerning because he can be so punchy in his views on what's going on here in Europe. And I think there's a lot of bafflement about what exactly he will be doing in his job.
I mean, you'd never have someone coming from outside government to have a government role like that here in the U.K. or in other parts of Europe. So trying to figure it out and also this role that he's got, which is going to be affecting government departments which Europe deals with. How will they be affected particularly the state department of course, and the defense department how will he change them?
So they're trying to work it out and working out how close he is to Trump, and so, how much he speaks for Trump. A lot of humor going around as well around the fact that they've got, you know, this government department or Department of Government Efficiency and they've got two heads of it. So how does that work?
HUNT: Yeah. Well, and the fact that, you know, Elon Musk backs Dogecoin, clearly someone over there is, amused by the way this government department abbreviates.
Max Foster for us this morning -- Max, always grateful to see you. Thank you. Have a good weekend.
FOSTER: Thank you. Thank you.
HUNT: All right. Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, RFK Jr.'s plans for health in America.
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA), SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: I knew he was considering it, and I think it brings a lot to the table.
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HUNT: Getting him confirmed will be a test of Senate Republicans' loyalty to Donald Trump.
Plus, the pentagon confirming hundreds of reported UFO sightings.
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[05:22:29]
HUNT: All right. Twenty-one minutes past the hour. Here's your morning roundup.
Deadline day for Rudy Giuliani, the former Trump attorney forced to turn over his classic car, a collection of watches and other valuable items to two Georgia election workers he defamed. The items are part of a $148 million judgment against the former New York mayor.
A brief fight broke out at a soccer match between Israel and France fans in Paris, tensions were high going into the game, coming just days after antisemitic violence in Amsterdam, where Israeli fans were attacked.
The truth is out there. The Pentagon says in just over a year, they received more than 750 reports of UFO sightings in the U.S. but despite the reports, still no evidence, they say, of alien activity.
All right. Time now for weather. Elevated fire danger returns in the Northeast just as firefighters say that most of the Jennings Creek fire in New Jersey and New York is contained.
Let's get to our meteorologist, the weatherman, Derek Van Dam.
Derek, good morning.
DEREK VAN DAM, AMS METEOROLOGIST: Good morning. Happy Friday, Kasie, to everybody out there.
Listen, this is the story today. The high fire danger going into the weekend just as we started to see some serious containment with the Jennings Creek Fire.
Now we have to deal with elevated fire risk for much of the Northeast through today. Right through tomorrow as well. So, there's a couple of different weather systems moving through the East Coast.
Yeah, you think that this would produce the rainfall necessary to help extinguish any remaining flames near the Jennings Creek Fire, which is right about here.
But notice the water is basically or the rainfall is basically evaporating just as it reaches the border of New York and New Jersey. Not the greatest news. There's a storm system pulling away from the East Coast, nothing more than a stiff northwesterly breeze behind it. And it's also going to drive down the relative humidity levels.
So those combinations obviously lead to a high fire risk going forward. So we'll leave that in the outlook this weekend from Boston all the way to Philadelphia and Baltimore.
But you know what this means for the Acela corridor. Anybody grabbing a train today between D.C. and Boston, you've got a dry looking forecast. But it will be cool and rather gusty. So plan accordingly. Get that coat as you head out the door this morning -- Kasie.
HUNT: Very helpful. Derek Van Dam for us this morning -- Derek, thank you. I'll see you next hour.
VAN DAM: All right.
HUNT: All right. Ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, some swing states call the -- some swing state voters call the Republican trifecta troubling. Their concerns about the clean sweep as Donald Trump takes his victory lap.
And Trump's controversial pick for HHS secretary could test Senate Republicans' loyalty.
[05:25:07]
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STEPHEN COLBERT, COMEDIAN: Bobby Jr. has also said chemicals in the water could be turning children gay.
That is insane. That is nonsense. Water does not turn a person gay. Although I got to say Jason Momoa and Aquaman came pretty darn close. I mean --
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HUNT: All right, 5:29 a.m. here on the East Coast. It is 2:29 a.m. out in Last Vegas. That's Sphere. I could watch it all morning. It's like totally mesmerizing. Apparently very expensive to run, but it's gorgeous.
All right. Happy Friday. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
This was Donald Trump's --
