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Joe Biden Pardons Son Hunter; Kash Patel Nominated by Trump to Head FBI; Lake-Effect Snow Warnings in Effect for Great Lakes Region. Aired 6-6:30a ET

Aired December 02, 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, December 2nd. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.

[05:59:46]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DAVID MUIR, ABC NEWS ANCHOR: Have you ruled out a pardon for your son?

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Yes.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: A change of heart. President Biden going back on a campaign pledge about pardoning his son, Hunter.

And --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FORMER ADVISOR TO TRUMP'S NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL: We're going to come after the people in the media.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: An FBI shakeup. What Donald Trump's pick to lead the FBI says he would do on day one if put in charge.

And then --

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(SIRENS)

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HUNT: A civil war reignited. How rebels in Syria rapidly seized the country's second largest city.

And --

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yesterday, I shoveled for four hours.

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HUNT: Let it snow. Regions around the Great Lakes getting hammered with up to five feet of snow. It's not over yet.

All right, 6 a.m. here on the East Coast. A live look at Capitol Hill on this Monday after Thanksgiving weekend.

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

The Biden Justice Department has been politicized. That's this message -- the message this morning from, no, not just Donald Trump, but from President Joe Biden himself.

The president issuing a full and unconditional pardon to his son, Hunter, after repeating insistently -- repeatedly insisting in public that he wouldn't do it.

And to defend his decision, the president adopted an argument that could have come straight out of Donald Trump's playbook. Blame your political opponents and claim unfair persecution.

President Biden said this: quote, "The charges in his cases came about only after several of my political opponents in Congress instigated them to attack me and oppose my election."

The president adding, quote, "No reasonable person who looks at the facts of Hunter's cases can reach any other conclusion than Hunter was singled out only because he is my son, and that is wrong," end quote.

President Biden pardon -- pardoning his son not just for the gun crimes for which he was convicted and not just for the tax crimes, for which he pled guilty. Instead, Biden gave his son an extraordinarily sweeping pardon for any and all crimes he committed, may have committed, or even merely been involved in at any point in the last ten years.

That broad language, unlike any in recent history and reminiscent only of President Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon for, quote, "all offenses against the United States," end quote, that the former president had or may have committed during his entire presidency.

Trying to explain his decision to Americans, President Biden made a personal appeal. He said this, quote, "I hope Americans will understand why a father and a president would come to this decision," he said last night.

Understand? Americans might, though they'll have to be forgiven for thinking that all of this was off the table.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is there any possibility that the president would end up pardoning his son? KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: No. Well, I just said

no. I just answered.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Would the president pardon or commute his son if he's convicted?

JEAN-PIERRE: So, I've answered this question before. It was asked of me not too long ago, a couple of weeks ago, and I was very clear; and I said no.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: You've said before that the president would not pardon his son. Is that still the case?

JEAN-PIERRE: Nothing has changed. That is still the case.

MUIR: And have you ruled out a pardon for your son?

BIDEN: Yes.

I said, I'll abide by the jury's decision, and I will do that. And I will not pardon him.

JEAN-PIERRE: I can speak for the president, and he said he would not pardon his son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does the president have any intention of pardoning him?

JEAN-PIERRE: We've been asked that question multiple times. Our answer stands, which is no.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Well, it stood until last night.

Joining us now, Saleha Mohsin, senior Washington correspondent for Bloomberg; Isaac Dovere, CNN senior reporter; Meghan Hays, former director of message planning for the Biden White House; and Brad Todd, Republican strategist and CNN political commentator.

Welcome to all of you.

Meghan Hays, look, you -- you know, many of our viewers have gotten to know you, but you really do know this family. You worked inside this White House for a very long time.

Can you help us understand how they got to this decision? Because I have to say, I've talked to some people who thought the president wouldn't get there, because he was concerned about his legacy. Obviously, something really changed.

MEGHAN HAYS, FORMER DIRECTOR OF MESSAGE PLANNING FOR BIDEN WHITE HOUSE: Yes, I'm a little surprised. I didn't actually think he'd get there until much later, in the last couple months of his term.

But I do think, with some of the nominations that Trump has put up, I think it probably caused a little bit of worry for him.

But also, I think people have to remember the president has lost two children already, and he does not need to lose another one to more political, you know, witch hunts that the president is calling them. He doesn't. He worries about Hunter going to jail.

There's a lot of things wrapped up in this. But I think, at the end of the day, the president made a decision as a father to keep his son out of jail and out of harm's way moving forward.

HUNT: You -- just to pick up on something you said at the top of your answer, you think the selection, for example, of Kash Patel played into this decision?

HAYS: I think that some of these nominations that Trump has been putting forward and leaving this in the hands of other folks, I think is -- is worrisome to the president.

I mean, President Trump has and Kash Patel have said they are going to go after their political enemies. They're going after retribution.

I think that -- that Hunter Biden has been seen as the person that they've gone after many times. And I don't think the president is going to leave that to chance when he leaves office.

[06:05:06]

He, again, does not want to lose another son. He has lost two children already, and he does not want this to, like, go on any further once he leaves office.

Isaac Dovere, what's your reporting kind of behind the scenes on, you know, how this came to be? But also, I mean, we have seen some Democratic reaction already criticizing the president from this -- for this.

I mean, we saw a tweet from the Colorado governor, the Democrat Jared Polis, saying it's bad precedent, precedent that could be abused by later presidents.

Congressman Greg Stanton said, "I respect President Biden, but I think he got this one wrong."

And then Joe Walsh, who is a former congressman, Republican congressman, who's become a Trump critic, he was on MSNBC. He put it this way. Let's play it, because it's kind of a succinct way to look at it. Take a look.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE WALSH, FORMER CONGRESSMAN: So, the next time any of us complain about anything Trump does, this -- this pardon is just deflating. Nobody's above the law, we've been screaming.

Well, Joe Biden just made clear his son Hunter is above the law.

Donald Trump lies every time he opens his mouth, we've been screaming. Joe Biden repeatedly lied about this.

The politicization of the justice system, Donald Trump and his people have been screaming. Well, that's exactly what Biden said here.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Does he have a point? And what are you hearing from other Democrats?

ERIC-ISAAC DOVERE, CNN SENIOR CORRESPONDENT: This is the kind of thing that does breed cynicism in people, and it's that cynicism that, in part, Donald Trump plays off of in making the moves that he does when he says, look, it's all rigged against everybody.

The -- the Justice Department is politicized, right? And now Joe Biden has said that his Justice Department, under his administration, was what was pursuing these cases, was what had gotten the guilty verdict in the -- the gun case and was -- we were waiting for the sentencing in this tax case.

That's a -- that's an issue for Joe Biden to face now, when he has put himself forward, not just as an opposition to Trump, but as someone who is standing on principle and on norms and on keeping in -- in that way.

I do think, though, it's important that we can hold multiple thoughts in our heads at the same time, right? That Donald Trump will, perhaps use this. His, certainly, allies will use this as justification or something to point to when he does things that -- whether it's pardoning people who were involved in the January 6th riot or other things.

But it's not like Donald Trump wasn't going to do some of those things anyway. Right? And so -- but it does muddy all the waters of people who wanted to see Biden, if nothing else, as somebody who was standing up for all of these ideals that he was talking about for the last bunch of years.

HUNT: Yes. Fair. Although we should also acknowledge, Saleha, that this is not the first president to pardon someone who he is related to in some way, including I mean, with Donald Trump, it was an in-law but, you know, someone in his family nonetheless.

SALEHA MOHSIN, SENIOR WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT FOR BLOOMBERG: An in- law, Charles Kushner, Jared's father, who he has just nominated to be his ambassador to France.

I would have to agree that there is a little bit of a precedent being set that now, when Democrats are sort of trying to figure out where do they go from here after being -- after having lost so badly in the presidential elections and down-ballot races, they're trying to rebuild the party. And they're left with an aged president leaving, former head of the Democratic Party after being president, and now he's done this. It's going to be really hard in the next two years, as Democrats are

trying to position themselves heading into midterms, to also serve as bulwarks against some of Trump's plans, especially now that we've heard about his FBI nomination.

HUNT: Brad Todd, you and I have spent -- we saw each other on Sunday. We were talking about kind of the ways in which, you know, Republicans obviously feel like the Department of Justice has been weaponized against them in political ways.

Do you buy -- I mean, Joe Biden is basically saying, look, this -- he would never have been prosecuted if he wasn't my son. And that this is political, as well. Do you buy that?

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: There's no question. A lot of Justice Department prosecutions are a result of the fact that the DOJ decides they can get press out of them.

They are sensitive to media pressure. They're sensitive to political pressure.

Joe Biden and Donald Trump are now saying the same thing. And I think that makes the case for why the DOJ has to be cleaned up. A new ethos of operation has to happen there.

But I think one thing about this pardon, that's -- that's striking to me is that it's not for the gun and the tax charge. This is for everything he did in the last 11 years. Coincidentally, that's when he went on the board of Burisma, the Ukrainian gas company.

I think that there's going to be a lot more investigation into what Joe -- Hunter Bidens dealings were with Burisma. And now that he's been pardoned, he doesn't need the Fifth Amendment. He can tell us everything. He can tell us everything about his coconspirators. He can tell us everything about other people who did business with him. A lot more is now on the table.

[06:10:04]

And so, I think Joe Biden, in overreaching here with an 11-year pardon, he may have opened more fodder for -- for investigation from the House.

DOVERE: But that's the point. In the mind of the president, it seems that there was this fear that there would be vindictive retribution, prosecutions of Hunter Biden under a Trump-run Justice Department.

And look, it is definitely the case that some of the attention to Hunter Biden is because of Joe Biden.

I remember still being in South Carolina the day after the South Carolina primary that Joe Biden won in 2020, when he turned his campaign around. And all of a sudden, Senator Ron Johnson was asking for information about Burisma.

So -- but that's the way it goes. It's also the case that Hunter Biden, clearly over the course of his career, benefited from being Joe Biden's son.

TODD: Just -- just watch. More people will be pardoned by this -- this administration who dealt with Hunter Biden.

HUNT: We will see.

All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, the new Congress, not yet in session. Democrats already looking to the midterms. Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey will be here to discuss how his party can move forward after their devastating losses.

Plus, heavy snow pummeling the Great Lakes, some places nearing five feet of powder.

And Donald Trump's pick to head the FBI said this is his day one priority.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: I'd shut down the FBI Hoover building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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[06:15:50]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: We will go out and find the conspirators not just in government, but in the media. Yes. We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminally or civilly. We'll figure that out.

But yes, we're putting you all on notice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Those are the words of Kash Patel, vowing to go after perceived opponents of Donald Trump. He is now also the man that Trump says he wants to lead the FBI.

Over the weekend, the president-elect making it official in a statement, calling Patel, quote, "a brilliant lawyer, investigator, and American first fighter who has spent his career exposing corruption."

Democrats calling the pick proof that Donald Trump wants the FBI to be weaponized against his political enemies.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D-CT): Kash Patel's only qualification is because he agrees with Donald Trump that the Department of Justice should serve to punish, lock up, and intimidate Donald Trump's political opponents.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: But some congressional Republicans say Patel's selection is exactly why Donald Trump was elected in the first place.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Do you have any reservations about Kash Patel serving in that role?

REP. MIKE LAWLER (R-NY): No. Donald Trump campaigned on reforming the FBI and the Department of Justice, so I don't know why any of this is, frankly, surprising to people.

REP. TED CRUZ (R-TX): I think Kash Patel is a very strong nominee to take on the partisan corruption in the FBI.

SEN. BILL HAGGERTY (R-TN): There are serious problems at the FBI. The American public knows it. They expect to see sweeping change, and Kash Patel is just the type of person to do it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Our panel is back.

Brad Todd, "The Wall Street Journal" has a pretty interesting op-ed on this today. I will say, I was surprised that Lawler was so unequivocal, as a swing district Republican. Obviously, the others that we saw there, a little bit more straightforward in their -- kind of the way that we might expect them to answer something like this.

But "The Journal" sort of interestingly, they really went after Jim Comey in this op-ed. They say the FBI's abuses under Comey were the worst since J. Edgar Hoover, as documented by the Justice Department I.G. And they referenced the special counsel, John Durham.

FISA officials lied to get a warrant against Trump campaign official Carter Page. They lied about disinformation in the Steele dossier, which was financed by the Clinton campaign.

But they reference John Bolton, who told our Jake Tapper over the weekend that Trump has nominated Kash Patel to be his Lavrenty Beria, who was of course, the head of Joseph Stalin's secret police.

And he says the Senate should reject this nomination 100 to 0. "The Journal" argues, OK, the Senate really has to look at this.

What do you think is the future for Kash Patel?

TODD: I'm watching two people on the House -- on the Senate Judiciary Committee, John Cornyn and Chuck Grassley.

Chuck Grassley has already spoken. He said, of course, the Justice Department needs to be reformed. Of course, we have to have major changes. Kash Patel has to explain to the Senate how he's going to do it. I want to see his plan.

John Cornyn also is -- was the chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court. He takes a very serious approach to these matters.

Both of them are late in their careers. Both of them have not yet announced if they're running for reelection this time.

I think that the way those two men handled this on the Senate Judiciary Committee holds the fate of Kash Patel's nomination. For sure, there are probably two or three Republicans who could vote no.

If you're looking for a fourth one, what I would first look at is, can he get out of the Senate Judiciary Committee?

HUNT: That's an interesting way to think about it. I mean, because "The Journal" does go on to write, "Does Mr. Patel still want to unleash the FBI on Democrats and media critics like Hoover? Down that road lies no end of political trouble."

And again, this is "The Wall Street Journal." It's not like a liberal bastion, OK?

"No end of political trouble for Republicans and the Trump presidency. The effort is sure to backfire. Voters didn't reelect Mr. Trump to practice lawfare the way his opponents have. The country wants a bureau it can trust, not a Republican version of the Comey FBI."

Will that resonate?

TODD: Well, I think -- I don't know about that. I think that the Republicans are ready to see the Department of Justice turned 180 degrees around. And some of that's going to mean it's going to have to not go easy on Democrats.

But I think Republicans mainly want to see it depoliticized. That's that -- there's 100. There is 100 to 0 among Republicans on that.

HUNT: All right.

[06:20:00]

Still coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, snow piling up over four feet in some areas of the Great Lakes region. That snow set to continue. We'll have much more with our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek van Dam.

Plus, airstrikes in Syria killing dozens after rebel forces launched a surprise attack.

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HUNT: All right. Winter weather in full swing. Heavy snowfall approaching five feet in parts of the Great Lakes region. Snow is expected to continue.

Lake-effect snow warnings still in effect for parts of Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New York through tomorrow afternoon.

Let's get straight to our meteorologist, our weatherman, Derek van Dam. Derek, this is a lot of snow.

DEREK VAN DAM, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Yes. Kasie, can you imagine waking up having to hunt and peck for your car? I mean, this would be a great sequel to that 2000 Ashton Kutcher's flick "Dude, Where's My Car?"

[06:25:03]

Yes, there it is. Right? Buried under four feet of snow. Of course, that can be very dangerous. We don't like it when the visibility drops to nothing.

But when we talk about these lake-effect snow bands, they are a game of miles. Some people get hit very hard. Some people get next to nothing. And it can be a matter of just a few miles away.

This is a sped-up radar loop. Over the past few days, you can see the bands that I'm talking about.

Look at how it's just South of Buffalo. This is important, because I want to show you where the heaviest snow actually accumulated.

Buffalo Airport only an inch or a little over an inch of snow falling. You travel about ten miles to the South, and we saw over two feet. That is the nature of lake-effect snow. It is all about the direction of the wind and where that snow actually falls.

Now, there's more snow incoming across those very localized areas that could impact Interstate 90, where we've seen some backups and, of course, stalled vehicles through the course of the weekend as this arctic air mass continues to settle in over the Eastern two-thirds of the country.

Dude, where's my car?

HUNT: I will say we had a snowpocalypse, we called it, here in D.C. once. And I was -- at the time had a Mini Cooper, which was in fact entirely buried in the snow. The pickup truck--

VAN DAM: It only takes two inches to bury a Mini Cooper, so there's that.

HUNT: Well, not quite. OK? But I do remember having to dig it out. So, my -- my sympathies to whoever owns that car you showed, Derek. Thank you. I appreciate it.

All right. Straight ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, Republicans preparing to take control of Washington as Democrats look to 2026 to regroup.

Democratic Congressman Glenn Ivey joins us to talk about how they plan to do that.

Plus, before Biden, other presidents have used their power to help out a family member, a friend, or even a past president in need. Mark McKinnon will be here to discuss the long list of controversial pardons in the past.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GERALD FORD, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I decided that was the only way I could get rid of Mr. Nixon's problems that were taking 25 percent of my daily time.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

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