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Source: Trump is 100 percent 'All In' for Gaetz as Attorney General; Axios: Some House Democrats 'Sick' of Pelosi; Biden Lets Ukraine Use Long-Range U.S. Weapons in Russia. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired November 18, 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 18. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.
[05:58:53]
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): What I have said, with regard to the report, is that it should not come out. I think that would be a Pandora's box.
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HUNT: A Pandora's box. Why the House ethics report on Donald Trump's attorney general pick, Matt Gaetz, could be buried.
Plus --
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Americans have been living through an unprecedented surge in censorship.
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HUNT: Clearing out the, quote, "censorship cartel." The top priority for Donald Trump's pick to lead the FCC.
And this.
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REP. HAKEEM JEFFRIES (D-NY): We're going to focus like a laser beam on dealing with the issues related to working-class Americans.
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HUNT: Winning the working class. Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle will be here to discuss how his party moves forward.
And later.
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VOLODYMYR ZELENSKYY, UKRAINIAN PRESIDENT (through translator): Missiles will speak for themselves, for sure.
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HUNT: Russia responds. What the Kremlin now says about President Biden letting Ukraine use long-range American-made missiles inside Russia.
All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast, a live look at Capitol Hill on this Monday morning. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
New scrutiny this morning for Donald Trump's cabinet picks as the president himself revels in the celebratory mood at his Mar-a-Lago club.
Over the weekend, new CNN reporting revealing Trump's pick for defense secretary, the FOX News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, paid a woman who accused him of sexual assault back in 2017 in a settlement agreement.
Hegseth's attorney tells CNN the incident was a, quote, "consensual sexual encounter."
Now, one Senate Republican, who's leaning toward voting yes, wants to know more.
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SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): As of right now, I start with yes, but can I be moved off of that? I'm sure. Everybody starts at some point. Some people start at dead even. Some people start at a yes. Some people started at a no. But I start at a yes. And it's going to take some -- some movement for me to move off of that.
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HUNT: And then there's Trump's choice for attorney general, Matt Gaetz, with some Senate Republicans now wanting to see that nearly completed House ethics report against the former congressman. The report allegedly details sexual misconduct allegations and drug use.
The House speaker, Mike Johnson, pushing to keep it secret.
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MULLIN: I believe the Senate should have access to that. Now, should it be released to the public or not? That -- that's -- I guess that will be part of the negotiations.
JOHNSON: The Senate has a role. The advise and consent role under the Constitution, and they'll perform it. They'll have a rigorous review and vetting process in the Senate.
But they don't need to rely upon a report or a draft report, a rough draft report that was prepared by the Ethics Committee for its very limited purposes.
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HUNT: So, one person who is reportedly not bothered by the uproar around the choices, at least at this moment, is President-elect Trump himself.
Sources tell CNN that Trump is, quote, "100 percent" looking forward to Gaetz getting confirmed, adding, quote, "He's not going to back off. He is all in."
Here was his son, Donald Trump Jr.
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DONALD TRUMP JR., SON OF DONALD TRUMP: The reality this time is we actually know what we're doing. We actually know who the good guys and the bad guys are. We know who the guys are fake.
And it's about surrounding my father with people who are both competent and loyal. They will deliver on his promises. They will deliver on his message. They are not people who think they know better, as unelected bureaucrats.
A lot of them are going to face pushback for the same reasons. Again, they are going to be actual disrupters. That's what the American people want.
But Washington, D.C., doesn't want that.
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HUNT: And this, interestingly, was Democratic Senator John Fetterman, suggesting that maybe, for the reality TV star turned President Trump, the drama is the point.
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SEN. JOHN FETTERMAN (D-PA): There's others that are just absolute trolls, just like Gaetz and those things. And that's why, you know, Democrats, you know, like Trump, that gets the kind of thing. I mean, he gets the kind of thing that he wanted.
You know, like the freak-out and all of those things.
And -- and he hasn't even been -- it's still not even -- not even Thanksgiving yet. And if were having meltdowns, you know, every tweet or every appointment or all those things, I mean, it's going to be four years.
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HUNT: A long four years.
Joining us now to discuss, our panel is here: Alex Thompson, CNN political analyst; Isaac Dovere, CNN senior reporter; Meghan Hays, former director of message planning at the Biden White House; and Doug Heye, a Republican strategist. Welcome to all of you. Thank you for being here.
Doug, I actually want to start with you.
DOUG HEYE, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: Thanks. Matt Gaetz, me. Awesome. Monday, starting off the week right.
HUNT: But look, seriously, I'm interested to know what you think about the interplay between what's going on at Mar-a-Lago and what's happening on Capitol Hill.
"The New York Times," of course, reports -- reported about this, and they were looking at Hegseth, actually. And they had this line: "Mr. Trump often dislikes when people connected to him get negative media coverage, which can be true. But we're also not picking up any indication right now that Trump is doing that.
And this, of course, this is a Maggie -- Maggie Haberman byline, who, of course, has known and covered Donald Trump for -- for decades at this point.
What is your sense of how bad things are for these nominees on the Hill right now? And whether it's -- that's getting picked up at Mar-a- Lago?
HEYE: Well, there's a difference between Matt Gaetz and everybody else, regardless of -- of the drama. And, you know, various headlines.
By the way, the front page above the fold of "The New York Times" today said Donald Trump seeks to shake up the status quo. So, there's a headline that Donald Trump wants. And, you know, that goes exactly to what Speaker Johnson was saying.
But -- but the devil will be in the details for some of these nominees. And when I say the devil, it's because, for a lot of Republicans, a lot of those who were in the House who've now moved to the Senate, Markwayne Mullin being one of them, they view Matt Gaetz as a devil.
And very clearly, there are personal feelings there. There may be policy feelings there, as well. He has the toughest road of all of the -- of any of these nominees.
You know, then when you get down the line on some of the others, well, they're going to have their hearings. We're going to find out what happened, what didn't happen.
And for Donald Trump, the -- the main headline is that he's causing chaos and he's causing people, even John Fetterman, with whatever hair is left, to pull that out. And he's enjoying that.
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HUNT: Yes. I mean, Alex Thompson, so the -- the -- the piece that is on the front page, and it's actually Trump swings wrecking ball at status quo is what's written at the top there. And this is, of course, Peter Baker. And he writes this: "Mr. Trump,
by contrast, has bulled past the old red lines, opting for nominees who are so provocative that even fellow Republicans wondered whether he is trolling them. The message to Washington is simple, according to Roger Stone, the longtime Trump friend who relishes his own reputation as a political dirty trickster. 'Things are going to be different,' he said by text."
And so, I guess the question is, are they? It certainly seems so.
ALEX THOMPSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: I mean, if you're Trump, you feel invincible right now. You feel like the laws of political gravity do not apply to you.
Think about all the things that he has overcome over the last two years, in a political sense, that would be death knells. He was convicted as a -- as a felon. He basically was also charged with several other really serious crimes. He said, at times, crazy stuff on the campaign trail.
And then he won not just the Electoral College, but he won the popular vote.
So, now it's not clear to me that everyone that voted for him was voting for this. They may have just also been voting for old Trump. The, you know, pre-COVID nostalgia.
One thing, just on the Matt Gaetz point, that I think one person to really watch through all of this is Mitch McConnell, because the Republicans only have 53 votes. So, if you take Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and Alaska, so those are two that are not probably going to go for these MAGA people. If Mitch McConnell does not vote for these, then they have only one. Then it's 50-50. They have no margin for error. And he's going to be a really critical vote.
HUNT: Yes. Isaac, Democrats really, there's not a lot they can do about any of this, right? I mean, how -- how do they -- how are they viewing what is playing out right now with his picks?
Because I mean, honestly, to Alex's point, there is this question of whether, like the country, we -- we often find is pretty run, you know, center of the road. There's often a correction after an election like this, if the incoming administration overplays their hand.
A lot of people would argue the Biden administration overplayed their hand in the beginning. And that's part of why, you know, we've ended up here. And what's your sense of how they view it?
ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: Well, they don't have much to do, right? They -- they're in the minority in the Senate. They've got to watch these -- these nominees come forward. And if they're against them, hope the way the math that Alex laid out is there.
There are others who are opposed to Matt Gaetz, to Doug's point, that the number of votes that Matt Gaetz is going to lose might be insurmountable for him. That could end up being the case for some of the other ones, like Hegseth, depending on what we find out about him.
But for them, this is about trying to slow down the gears as much as they can, bring out as much as they can, make people in the country see that Donald Trump's presidency is not what he is talking about, but is about all these other things, in their minds.
But -- but it's also about the larger political calculation that -- that they can hope. And maybe this ends up working against them, that Donald Trump is, is looking here clearly how far he can go. He has not reached that point yet, and -- and he is seeing the Republicans are so far letting him go this far. We'll see how far it is.
MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING FOR BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: But I think that one thing here the Democrats can do is they can bring this into the public's attention, and they can keep bringing it to the media. And that will irritate Donald Trump, and it will aggravate him.
They're not going to be able to do a lot. They can't stop these. They don't have the majority. But they can bring these things public and slow it down.
And the more time they take in the hearings, the more time they take in the investigations, the more stuff this comes out for these people that are just a little bit absurd and not competent. So --
HUNT: Does -- does Fetterman have a point that this is -- that this is what Trump wants?
HAYS: Totally. But I think you get to a point, especially with, like, a Matt Gaetz or a Tulsi Gabbard, that if enough stuff comes out, he might withdraw their nominations. And I think that's what we'll get with Gaetz. He'll withdraw it.
HEYE: Matt Gaetz is the best thing that happened for everyone else who's going to nominated.
HAYS: Because that would be the No. 1 person.
HEYE: Because if you're McConnell or someone else, and you vote against Matt Gaetz, you'd better get in line with everybody else. And that's, you know, OK.
If McConnell is retiring or something, that's a different calculation. But he makes it much harder for Republicans to vote against any other nominees.
THOMPSON: There's one thing I wanted to add to Meghan's point is these hearings, especially the Matt Gaetz, but all these other hearings. You're going to see every Democrat that wants to run for president in 2028 really try to make this -- make it -- make a point and really grill these people.
HAYS: Don't you think that's also true for the Republicans, too? Like, some of these people in the -- they're up for midterm elections. They all want to run for president, too. So, like they all -- are all walking a fine line here to make sure
that this is being held up and doing this confirmation hearings responsibly.
DOVERE: Part of it for -- for the Democrats. And I think Republicans in a different way, is that we are seeing already that whatever the approach, the anti-Trump approach was in his first term, will not be the anti-Trump approach in the second term.
And that is that they are all trying to figure out what this is for the anti-Trump Republicans, for the Democrats.
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How do they oppose him? How do they clash with him without it just seeming -- knee-jerk is the word that a lot of Democrats have been using dismissively. They don't want to be knee-jerk opposed.
We're not going to see a women's march like there was in 2017. We're not going to see those sorts of things. But yet, to be substantive and -- and attention grabbing in that opposition.
HUNT: Yes. All right. Really interesting.
Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, a major shift in policy with just two months left in office. President Biden authorizes Ukraine to use U.S.-made long-range weapons inside Russia.
Plus, how to win back the working class. Democratic Congressman Brendan Boyle here to discuss.
And has former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi overstayed her welcome? Reports of a growing rift behind closed doors.
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JEFFRIES: I think Speaker Pelosi has been incredibly respectful of the entire leadership team.
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REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA) (via phone): Had the president gotten out sooner there may have been other candidates in the race. Kamala, I think, still would have won, but she may have been stronger, having taken her case to the public sooner.
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HUNT: Nancy Pelosi has been raising some eyebrows among her own party, as she's making it clear who she thinks is at fault for Democrats losing the White House.
Some House Democrats reportedly wish she would keep quiet. Axios reporting that one Democratic lawmaker says, "She needs to take a seat," adding that "making scattershot comments is not just unhelpful, it's damaging."
Another member of the Congressional Black Caucus saying, "Hakeem has been tremendously grateful and respectful of her, but I don't think she is being respectful of him."
The lawmaker there, of course, referring to Hakeem Jeffries, the current Democratic leader, who took over after Pelosi stepped aside. He responded to that Axios reporting yesterday.
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JEFFRIES: Speaker Emerita Pelosi has been incredibly respectful of the entire leadership team. It's an honor to stand on the shoulders of Speaker Nancy Pelosi, an incredibly consequential public servant in the history of America, and to continue to work closely with Speaker Pelosi and, of course, Jim Clyburn and Steny Hoyer.
KRISTEN WELKER, HOST, NBC'S "MEET THE PRESS": Do you think she's undermining your leadership with her public pronouncements?
JEFFRIES: No.
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HUNT: Pretty straightforward "no" there. But, I mean, Alex Thompson, she went on to say in that "Times" interview, "Kamala may have -- I think she would have done well. She would have been going stronger going forward. We don't know that. That didn't happen. We live with what happened, because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately. That really made it impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different."
What are you picking up in terms of reaction to this?
THOMPSON: Yes, there are two things going on, and this is from my great colleague Hans Nichols. It's his reporting. But there are two things going on.
One is people are still trying to blame or put blame on other people for what just happened. And Pelosi was obviously very involved in replacing Joe Biden or pushing Joe Biden off the ticket.
And now that Harris lost, she's like, well, it wasn't totally my fault that Harris lost. Because Joe Biden endorsed Kamala Harris. And when he did that, he gave her $100 million head start, because he -- she then inherited the Joe Biden campaign, effectively ended any sort of contest.
Now, what House Democrats are saying is we're not interested in this blame game with you and Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. We want to move forward and try to chart the path forward. So please stop. DOVERE: Look, the other part of this is the Nancy Pelosi in 2022, this
time two years ago, when -- when Joe Biden was deciding whether to run for reelection, was very publicly talking about how excited she was for him to run for reelection.
So, she's had a number of different versions of this story.
And she also had issues with Kamala Harris that dates back to their days in San Francisco that were playing out behind the scenes.
HUNT: You can sort of see that, right? I mean --
DOVERE: But she -- the pullback, she has not been speaker for two years. Right. There was a -- a question of how long she would remain in the House. She is, I think, now she stays this full term, going to definitely set a record for a former speaker staying in the House.
I was in San Francisco, I remember, in the fall of 2021, reporting then about people expecting that she was about to quit. She's filed for reelection to run in 2026. This is -- she does not seem to be exiting the stage, even though, in addition to being a former speaker, she is 84 years old. And there's a lot of pull, both back in San Francisco and in Washington, for -- for new leadership.
HAYS: Yes, I mean, I think that no one was looking at a calendar when she keeps talking about this primary election. It's, like, there was not time to do that, in the matter that we were in.
And like you said, she was supportive of Joe Biden running, so she should go back and look at that. But she's an incredibly consequential speaker. But it is now time to move on and let new leadership take over.
THOMPSON: But one other thing is, in terms of her many stories, she also, just a few months ago, was like, there was an open process, and Kamala Harris won. And now she's saying there wasn't an open process. Joe Biden's fault.
HUNT: OK. After the break here on CNN THIS MORNING, throwing oil on the fire. Why the Kremlin says President Biden is escalating the conflict with Ukraine.
Plus --
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ROBERT F. KENNEDY JR. (I), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: The food that goes onto that airplane is, like, just poison.
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HUNT: Big Mac and a Coke for the man who once called the food that goes onto Trump's airplane poison.
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HUNT: A major policy shift in the last few months of his presidency. President Biden now giving Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy the go-ahead to use long-range American weapons inside Russia, according to officials familiar with the decision.
According to one U.S. official, the weapons are intended to be used primarily in Kursk. It's a region in Southern Russia where Ukraine launched a counteroffensive over the summer.
Moscow has deployed nearly 50,000 troops to the region, including thousands of North Korean troops.
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ZELENSKYY (through translator): The plan to strengthen Ukraine is the victory plan I have presented to partners. Long-range possibilities for our Army is one of its major points.
[06:25:07]
Today, there is a lot of talk in the media about us receiving a permit for respective actions. Hits are not made with words. Such things don't need announcements. Missiles will speak for themselves, for sure.
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HUNT: All right. Joining us now from Moscow, CNN international correspondent Fred Pleitgen.
Fred, good morning to you. We understand the Kremlin has just responded to this policy shift. What are we learning?
FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes. Yes, they certainly did. And I think one of the lines you already mentioned, that is really going around the media here in Russia is the fact that they said that they think the Biden administration is, as they put it, pouring oil onto the fire before they leave office.
Obviously, saying that they believe that the Biden administration, essentially, is escalating the conflict in Ukraine.
One of the other things that the spokesman for the Kremlin, Dmitry Peskov, also said is he believes that this will escalate and deepen the West's involvement in the conflict in Ukraine, in the war in Ukraine.
And, you know, one of the things that the Russians keep talking about -- the spokesman for the Kremlin, but also the spokesman for the foreign ministry -- is that Vladimir Putin has already said what Russia's reaction will be.
And that goes back to about three weeks ago. Because one of the things we have to keep in mind, Kasie, is that Vladimir Putin has been trying to dissuade, publicly, the Biden administration from making exactly the decision that it has now made.
And essentially, what Vladimir Putin said is that he believes that these type of weapons, of course, specifically speaking about the ATACM's surface-to-surface missiles, cannot be used. The targeting cannot happen unless with the help of specialists from the country where these weapons come from obviously, in this case, meaning the United States.
And I want to read from you -- to you one quick quote of what Vladimir Putin said back then, because I think it's quite telling.
He said, this will mean that NATO countries, the United States and European countries are at war with Russia, is what Vladimir Putin said back then. Now, they haven't gone that far yet.
But one of the things, of course, that's also concerning is that the Russians have actually changed the nuclear doctrine of their country to specifically include a scenario exactly like that, saying that, if Russia is attacked by a non-nuclear country, using long distance means, like, for instance, missiles supported by a nuclear country, obviously meaning countries like the United States, that this could cause a nuclear reaction from the Russians.
So, certainly, right now, the Russians very much up in arms publicly and saying that right now, for them, all options are on the table -- Kasie.
HUNT: All right. Fred Pleitgen for us, live from Moscow. Fred, thanks very much for that report.
All right. Coming up next here on CNN THIS MORNING, Democrats who split tickets with Donald Trump, what can they teach the rest of the party? Congressman Brendan Boyle joins us live.
Plus, Donald Trump picks a big tech critic to run the FCC. How Elon Musk might benefit.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We have seen an unprecedented surge in regulatory harassment. The FAA, the DOJ, the Southern District of New York, even the FCC where I work, have taken regulatory action against Elon Musk.
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