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CNN This Morning
Hegseth Denies Allegations During Meetings On Capitol Hill; Education Secretary Pick McMahon Sued For Enabling Sexual Abuse Of Children; Trump Picks Pam Bondi For Attorney General. Aired 5:30-6a ET
Aired November 22, 2024 - 05:30 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
[05:30:00]
KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: All right, 5:29 a.m. here on the East Coast on this Friday. A live look at Miami, Florida as we head into the weekend. Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
With Matt Gaetz now out as Donald Trump's pick for attorney general the focus turns back to another cabinet choice and other accusations of sexual misconduct -- in this case, sexual assault.
Trump's choice for defense secretary, the Fox News host and Army veteran Pete Hegseth, was on Capitol Hill Thursday just hours after a police report from 2017 was made public. A woman accused Hegseth of assaulting her in a California hotel room. Hegseth was never criminally charged in the case, but he did later pay the accuser in a confidential settlement agreement.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REPORTER: Did you sexually assault a woman in Monterey, California?
PETE HEGSETH, FORMER FOX NEWS ANCHOR, TRUMP'S PICK FOR DEFENSE SECRETARY: I have -- as far as the media is concerned, it's very simple. The matter was fully investigated, and I was completely cleared, and that's where I'm going to leave it. Thank you very much.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Publicly, Senate Republicans are showing some concern over the allegation, but they aren't outright saying it will sink the nomination.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): It's a pretty big problem given that we have -- you know, we have -- we have a sexual assault problem in our military that a number of us and certainly the champions, being Kirsten Gillibrand and Joni Ernst. But I've been on board with them in support of the legislation to deal with it since the -- since the chain of command was not. I'm not going to prejudge them but, yeah, it's a pretty concerning accusation. SEN. MIKE ROUNDS (R-SD): So this is a case of where the president has the opportunity to make that nomination. He gets the benefit of the doubt. And then I want an opportunity to visit with Pete. I want to visit with him and see what his thoughts are and how he would handle the department. He's going to have to answer those questions with regard to anything that's in his record.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right, joining us now to discuss is Margaret Talev, senior contributor to Axios and director of the Institute for Democracy, Journalism, and Citizenship at Syracuse University. Margaret, good morning.
MARGARET TALEV, SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR, AXIOS, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE FOR DEMOCRACY, JOURNALISM AND CITIZENSHIP, SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: Good morning, Kasie.
HUNT: Always wonderful to see you.
TALEV: Thank you.
HUNT: I do think it's important to note there you saw Pete Hegseth claim that he was cleared of all wrongdoing. We do not know that that's the case from the documents that we saw yesterday. The police did not make a judgment one way or the other. He was not ultimately criminally charged but he did pay this settlement.
But big picture here. You have Trump selecting a broad swath of nominees with challenges that are at a level that is really distinctly different from what we have seen in the past.
What does what happened with Gaetz and what's happening with Hegseth say about where this is all headed?
TALEV: Well, I think the president-elect has chosen to massively pressure test the system both to see whether Republicans in the Senate -- how far they're willing to go to align with him politically and to push back against him. And also, we're seeing him stress test the institutions because in many of these cases the people that he's nominated kind of directly confront the orthodoxy of the institutions.
And I think -- you know, where it's going to be very tempting -- OK, Matt Gaetz is out of the picture now. Pam Bondi is the nominee. Pete Hegseth's future is unclear. It's going to be very tempting to follow the story about the individual nominees, but I think what connects the dots here is President-elect Trump and the policies that he wants to pursue, and the idea that he's interested in political loyalists for a lot of these jobs -- and loyalists that have taken on the institutions.
I think in this particular case I'm also looking at female representation in the Senate. Because I think one of the big concerns in the U.S. military that has nothing to do directly with sort of readiness or force posture or all that but of culture of the military is that for women in the military pre all of this there have been longstanding concerns about whether there's safety in these sort of -- I don't know -- like, sexual safety situations.
HUNT: Right, yeah.
TALEV: Like, what is the --
HUNT: Questions about taking --
TALEV: -- internal mechanism.
HUNT: -- sexual assault out of the chain of command in the military -- which, of course, some changes were made. They were spearheaded by Kirsten Gillibrand and by Joni Ernst, who is a Republican.
I mean -- and to your point, I mean, the question is can they count to four, right, in terms of opposing one of these nominees? I am interested in kind of the dynamics. Like, with Gaetz, it was going to be way more than four --
TALEV: One hundred percent.
HUNT: -- right? And does that need to be the case for any nomination that is not going to make it through?
TALEV: That's a really interesting question. And I think in this particular case we're looking at what have been historically high numbers of female representation in the Senate, right? I mean, something like one out of four members of the Senate have been women and many of them have been Republican women. So I think women's role in confirmations is increasingly important. I mean, not necessarily this year compared to last year, but the last few years compared with 20 or 30 years ago.
HUNT: Sure.
[05:35:00]
TALEV: So I think the women en mass, even if it's just Republican women, maybe you get to four. And then Mitch McConnell's role -- of course, the outgoing Republican leader but who will remain in the Senate -- his role is increasingly important, I think.
HUNT: Yeah, for sure.
All right, Margaret Talev for us this morning. Thank you as always for being with us.
TALEV: Thanks, Kasie.
HUNT: I appreciate it. Have a good weekend.
TALEV: Thanks.
HUNT: All right.
Donald Trump and Elon Musk -- they seem to be totally inseparable these days. They've been seen together at public events across the country after Trump won the election. There was SpaceX's rocket test launch earlier this week. There they are together. That was after they went to last week's UFC fight at Madison Square Garden.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, (R) THEN-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I'm a person that believes in high I.Q.s, and his is about as high as they get. He launched a rocket three weeks ago and then he went to Pennsylvania to campaign because he considered this more important than launching rockets.
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. And you know what? I like having him here, too.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: All right. We're going to dig into this after we take a quick break.
Matt Gaetz might be out as Trump's pick for attorney general, but it didn't take Trump long to find a replacement.
Plus, a snowy win for the Cleveland Browns. We're going to have more on that coming up in the Bleacher Report.
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:40:50]
HUNT: All right, welcome back.
Let's go to another one of Donald Trump's cabinet picks who is now facing scrutiny -- the education secretary choice. She's being sued for alleged enabling the sexual abuse of children. A lawsuit filed last month alleges that Linda McMahon and her husband Vince knowingly allowed the exploitation of children by a World Wrestling Entertainment employee as early as the 1980s. McMahon denies the allegations.
CNN's Katelyn Polantz has more.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: It's a new lawsuit about something that happened decades ago, and it does accuse Linda McMahon and her husband Vince McMahon, and the WWE and its parent company of essentially allowing a pedophile to exist within their professional wrestling organization in the 1980s and prey upon underage boys who were being used at that time as ring boys.
So this dates back to the time when there was an announcer with the WWE, then-WWF, called Mel Phillips -- and that man, he is now dead. But he is accused of abusing boys and having fetishes toward them -- something that even federal investigators ultimately ended up looking into.
But the big question here is what did Linda McMahon know when she was the CEO of the WWE, and when did she know it? At some point in time in the late '80s -- 1988, Linda and Vince McMahon -- they fired Mel Phillips and then they brought him back to the company about six months later.
And so now, because the state of Maryland has changed its law about when you can bring child abuse lawsuits, there are anonymous former ring boys who are suing McMahon -- the McMahons -- both of them -- as well as the company, claiming that there was negligence there. That they knew and allowed this person, Mel Phillips, to continue to exist within the WWE.
Now, there are a lot of things left to happen in this court case. It is something that was filed just in October.
But we already have a statement from the attorney for Linda McMahon. This is Laura Brevetti. She said in a statement that the civil lawsuit is based upon 30-plus-year-old allegations and filled with scarless lies, exaggerations, and misrepresentations regarding Linda McMahon. And that she will vigorously defend against this baseless lawsuit and without doubt, ultimately succeed.
Vince McMahon's lawyer has also put out a statement previously saying these allegations are false.
But it's raising questions at a moment when Linda McMahon is being picked by Donald Trump to be the secretary of the Department of Education, a department that has quite a lot to do with the welfare of children in the United States.
Katelyn Polantz, CNN, Washington.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
HUNT: All right, our thanks to Katelyn for that report.
Let's turn now to this. Donald Trump has his new pick for attorney general after Matt Gaetz dropped out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JIMMY KIMMEL, HOST, ABC "JIMMY KIMMEL LIVE!": And while this is sad news for Gaetz and his fans, it is potentially very exciting news for Judge Jeanine Pirro who will be our next attorney general. Poor Rudy Giuliani. He's -- he has to be on the twin bed in the office his son converted into a guest room right now going what about me?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Trump is now choosing his longtime ally and the former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi. Trump allies telling CNN they are breathing a sigh of relief believing that Bondi will face a much easier confirmation process than Matt Gaetz. Bondi, who became Florida's top prosecutor at the height of the Tea
Party movement, has a reputation as an effective litigator. She served as a member of Trump's impeachment defense team, and she joined him on the campaign trail. Bondi has also spent a lot of time on the president-elect's favorite news channel.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
PAM BONDI, FORMER FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: This is just one big press conference trying to smear Donald Trump and trying to hurt Donald Trump.
It's really unbelieve what they're doing.
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX NEWS HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS": Right.
BONDI: They are obstructing the candidate, President Donald Trump.
The Department of Justice, the prosecutors will be prosecuted -- the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated. Because the deep state last term for President Trump -- they were hiding in the shadows. But now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
[05:45:10]
HUNT: All right, joining us now, criminal defense attorney and former prosecutor Mark O'Mara. He knows Pam Bondi from her time as attorney general. Mark, I'm so grateful to have you on the show this morning. Thank you so much.
What can you tell us --
MARK O'MARA, CRIMINAL DEFENSE ATTORNEY, FORMER PROSECUTOR (via Webex by Cisco): Good to be here.
HUNT: I actually -- I first got to cover Pam Bondi back in 2012 when she was a surrogate for Mitt Romney when he was running for the Republican nomination.
What can you tell us about her, about her evolution? And most importantly, what it would mean for her to be at the top of the Department of Justice considering what President Trump -- former President Trump has said he wants to do with the department?
O'MARA: Well, first -- yeah. First, I had several cases against her -- with Ms. Bondi way back in the day when she was a line prosecutor. First and foremost, she's a prosecutor. She's a good trial attorney, formidable in a courtroom, quite honestly.
Now, as an attorney general she's not going to show up in a criminal courtroom very often, but she does have that ability, that style. And that presence I think is going to serve her very well as the attorney general. HUNT: So, Mark, what -- how would you say her experience stacks up
for the job that she has been nominated for? Because there have been sort of two parallel tracks here as we've been trying to cover Trump's nominees for these positions. Some of them have very problematic personal issues. Matt Gaetz is a good example -- the one who -- you know, who obviously just was pulled to make way for Bondi.
But the other is questions about OK, what experience do you bring to the job? Does it line up with the types of experience that others have brought to the job in the past?
How does Bondi's experience stack up for -- in terms of others who have also been attorneys general of the United States?
O'MARA: Well, if I compare it to the most recent nominee, Matt Gaetz, they are worlds apart. Matt Gaetz, I don't think had any experience in a courtroom -- no real trial experience.
And although trial experience in and of itself isn't necessary for the job, the idea of being comfortable in the courtroom and presenting yourself -- it has become pretty apparent not only when she was a prosecutor over in Hillsborough County but since that she has a great presence. And after all, the attorney general job is sort of just that.
So I think she -- comparing to Gaetz and also comparing to some of the other nominees for the other positions, she has the pedigree. She truly does because she's, again, been in a courtroom and presents very well.
I think she's going to be an easy nominee approval by the Congress because she doesn't have some of the downside it seems that people like Matt Gaetz would have brought into it. So I think it's going to be pretty smooth. And if you compare her to all the other candidates, I think she's going to be an easy choice to be approved.
HUNT: Mark, one of the other things that Bondi did in her course -- in the course of her time working on behalf of Donald Trump was lawsuits related to the 2020 elections and what she has said about who won that election -- namely, that Joe Biden didn't win the election. That Donald Trump did.
Let's play a little bit of the -- a few of the things that she said in the course of that, and I'll ask you about it on the other side -- watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BONDI: We are still on the ground in Pennsylvania. I'm here right now and we are not going anywhere until they declare that we won Pennsylvania.
We know that ballots have been dumped. There were ballots that were found early on. We've heard that people were receiving ballots that were dead. You know, the thing that's happening all over the country.
STEVE DOOCY, FOX NEWS HOST, "FOX & FRIENDS": Were they legal ballots?
BONDI: It is about the integrity of this election and every vote -- as Mayor Giuliani said, and every state must be counted fairly.
And we need to fix this. We need to remedy this now because we've won Pennsylvania, and we want every vote to be counted in a fair way.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, of course, we know that Donald Trump did not win Pennsylvania in 2020.
What does her role here have -- what kind of implications does it have going forward if she's confirmed as attorney general?
O'MARA: Well, you know, I've had problems and troubles with the election deniers just because of my view of it from a -- not a political but from a legal standpoint. Everything we've looked at and everything that was vetted out seemed as though the election was properly done.
And yes, it is somewhat problematic generally speaking that any candidate, attorney general, or any other cabinet member who still maintains this concern. But let's face it, she is sort of also preaching to the choir who is now going to be our next president. That was always the position of Donald Trump. It's never going to change from that.
I find it concerning because the attorney general is the lead of the -- not only the Department of Justice but when you hear about the justice system in America you think about the attorney general. It has to be trusted. It has to be believed. Has to be respected so that we know that we can place our trust -- every one of us can place our trust in her and therefore place our trust in the criminal justice system.
[05:50:00]
So a little bit troubling and I'm hopeful that she's going to move forward as an attorney general, not just as a continued election denier because it is problematic for the trust in the system.
HUNT: Yeah. Trust in the system, of course, being the key -- one of the -- one of these foundational things we have all just been grappling with as a country for the last, I guess, going on a decade now since Donald Trump emerged on the stage.
Mark O'Mara, thank you very much for your time this morning. I really appreciate it.
O'MARA: Great. Thank you.
HUNT: All right, time now for sports.
The Cleveland Browns overcome snowy conditions to ice the Pittsburgh Steelers on Thursday night. Andy Scholes has this morning's Bleacher Report. Andy, good morning. The pictures out of this game were pretty wild.
ANDY SCHOLES, CNN SPORTS ANCHOR: Yeah, amazing, right, Kasie? You know, not officially winter yet but don't tell the fans in Cleveland that. It was just a winter wonderland for "THURSDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL."
Cleveland getting an inch of snow last night but, I mean, it looked like so much more. The fans were just getting pounded by snow in the second half. The ground crew having a very busy night. Conditions obviously not ideal for throwing the football.
Fourth quarter, Browns down one. Jameis Winston picked off by Donte Jackson. The Steelers -- they then celebrated with a snowball fight.
But this one was not over. The Browns got the ball back and drive down the field. Nick Chubb is going to punch it in for the go-ahead touchdown. Pittsburgh then, at the end, goes for the Hail Mary in the snow, but it was batted down.
The Browns pull off the upset, winning 24-19.
After the game, Steelers wide receiver George Pickens said they only lost because of the snow.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE PICKENS, WIDE RECEIVER, PITTSBURGH STEELERS: Conditions played a huge, huge part in today's game. I don't really think the Cleveland Browns are a good team at all. I think the conditions kind of saved them today.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: All right. Well, Major League Baseball handing out the MVP awards yesterday and no surprise Shohei Ohtani the unanimous pick for the National League after his historic 50-50 season. Ohtani, the first full-time designated hitter to ever win the award. This is his third MVP in four years.
And when they made the announcement, Ohtani's awesome dog Decoy decided he had had enough and he ran away, which got a nice laugh. Maybe he didn't like all that clapping.
Now, the Yankees' Aaron Judge, meanwhile, also a unanimous pick for AL MVP. He wins the award for the second time.
All right. In the NBA last night, the Lakers going for seven in a row against the Magic. They were up two in the closing seconds but Franz Wagner with a step-back go-ahead three with just two seconds left. Wagner had 37 in this one. Anthony Davis then had a chance at the end, but he would throw up an air ball at the buzzer.
Orlando hands the Lakers their first loss at home -- 119-118 the final. The Boston Celtics, meanwhile -- they were celebrating their title at
the White House yesterday. And President Biden saying he especially enjoyed their championship run.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Let me just say all of you may not know this but my Secret Service name is Celtic -- for real -- because I'm Irish. Everybody behind me is Irish in their heart. I feel a special pride in this trophy. From this old Irish Celtic and to all you Celtics, congratulations.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: All right. And finally, we had lots of laughs for night one of The Match superstars last night on TNT. Mark Wahlberg and Michael Phelps -- they won their match. Bill Murray and Wayne Gretzky also beating Charles Barkley and Ken Griffey Jr.
And, well, Chuck couldn't even change his shirt in peace during The Match.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your body looks better without a shirt on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, and we'll probably get, what, two, three holes out of this one?
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, the last one was 2 1/2.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think I can already see sweat stains. He just put it on.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They give you sweaty shirts.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: When you put the shirt on, I heard the shirt go oh (bleep).
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah, yeah.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
SCHOLES: Blake Griffin and Nate Bargatze and Trevor Immelman just roasting Barkley there.
The event wraps up again tonight.
Kasie, I just love -- I love these events. And it's weird. I actually like watching non-golfers play golf just the same as I like watching the real golfers do it. It's just entertaining to me. I don't know.
HUNT: I mean, didn't -- weren't we laughing about Charles Barkley yesterday for what happened at the last version of this tournament?
SCHOLES: Yeah. HUNT: I mean, you've got to love it. It's so fun.
SCHOLES: It's great.
HUNT: Andy, thank you. Have a wonderful weekend.
SCHOLES: Yeah, you, too.
HUNT: All right. Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, Matt Gaetz quit Congress to pursue the top spot at the Justice Department. Now that's not happening, so could he return to his House seat?
Plus, Donald Trump's plan to shake up the FBI and the loyalists he's eyeing to help him out.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KASH PATEL, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO U.S. SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopen it the next day as museum of the deep state.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(COMMERCIAL)
[05:59:15]
HUNT: It's Friday, November 22. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BONDI: The prosecutors will be prosecuted.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Waiting in the wings. Donald Trump taps his second attorney general pick after Matt Gaetz bows out.
And this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Fire everybody involved, and we need to overhaul DOJ and the FBI.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Overhauling the FBI. Trump's plans to shake up that agency in his second term.
And Vladimir Putin's message to the West. Russia launching a new missile capable of carrying nuclear weapons.
And later --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I've seen it up here a lot of times, but I've never seen it this bad.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Record rainfall -- more to come. The punishing storm inching its way across the Northwest.
Six a.m. here on the East Coast. It is snowing in New York City.
