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Trump Vows to Pardon January 6 Convicts on Day one; DOJ Watchdog: FBI Did Not Deploy Undercover Agents on Jan. 6; New Jersey Drone Mystery Deepens; Trump Open to Ending Childhood Vaccine Programs. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 13, 2024 - 06:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

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[06:30:59]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, please rise for the horribly and unfairly treated January 6th hostages.

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: Do you see the spirit from the hostages? And that's what they are, is hostages.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

KASIE HUNT, CNN ANCHOR: President-elect Donald Trump making clear that pardoning January 6th convicts is a top priority for his new administration. He told TIME Magazine in an interview released Thursday, quote, "I'll be looking at J6 early on, maybe the first nine minutes. I'm going to do case by case. And if they were nonviolent, I think they've been greatly punished."

Trump and his allies have been making false claims for years about the Capitol riot, arguing that law enforcement officials purposefully bungled their intelligence, even using paid informants to rile up an otherwise peaceful rally to create a violent insurrection.

TUCKER CARLSON, FORMER FOX NEWS HOST: FBI operatives were organizing the attack on the Capitol on January 6th.

LAURA INGRAM, FOX NEWS HOST: Three police officers were caught instigating the crowd, chanting and urging them to go into the Capitol.

REP. CLAY HIGGINS, (R-LA): An FBI informant was reported to have, quote, "This, quote, 'under oath,' marched to the U.S. Capitol."

TRUMP: There was Antifa and there was FBI. There were a lot of other people there, too, leading the charge.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: So a brand-new report from an independent Justice Department watchdog concludes this, quote, "We found no evidence in the materials we reviewed or the testimony we received showing or suggesting that the FBI had undercover employees in the various protest crowds or at the Capitol on January 6th."

Let's bring in former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe to discuss.

Sir, always grateful to have you on the program. Thanks for being here.

ANDREW MCCABE, CNN SENIOR LAW ENFORCEMENT ANALYST: Thanks, Kasie. It's good to be here.

HUNT: What is your takeaway from this report? And I mean, what can you tell us about these theories, about whether there were informants, et cetera?

MCCABE: Yeah, well, I guess my top line takeaway, Kasie, is that I'm not surprised at all. This is exactly what we expected. This is what the FBI has been telling us since January 6th about their own activities with informants.

And to be clear, what the IG determined was there were no FBI undercover employees, not a single one at the rally or on the Capitol that day. There were three informants. These are private citizens who provide information to the FBI under their own -- you know, for their own reasons. Three who were actually sent, asked to attend the rally and went and reported back on the domestic terrorism subjects that were -- that were under investigation and who we knew would be there.

And there were an additional 23 informants who just went because that's what they do. They are people in these communities, in these extremist groups who also report and provide information to the FBI. And they spend time with these people. So about 26 in total, many of them provided positive reporting back to the FBI. I think only four actually entered the Capitol on that day, and none have been accused by prosecutors of doing anything violent or committing crime.

So the truth, once again, is very different from what people have been hearing on right-wing television and from Republican politicians.

HUNT: So, yeah, just to clarify here, I think it's important. You said these informants are not bureau employees. They are people who give information to the bureau.

And then can I just ask for, you know, those of us who don't work in the field that you work in, what could you expect an FBI informant to be doing in a situation like this, right? If you have an informant that's inside one of these groups that's actually working with the U.S. government, what would their observed actions look like on that day?

[06:35:04]

MCCABE: Yeah, sure. That's a great question. So, first of all, the FBI has many informants in extremist communities around the country and around the globe. That's what we do as an intelligence organization. You have to recruit sources of information. You have to convince people who are members of these groups to report back information to the FBI.

And they do it for all sorts of different reasons. Once someone is an informant for the FBI, they are admonished that they have no authority to engage in any criminal activity and that if we find them committing crimes or participating in criminal activity, they will be arrested just like anyone else.

So people on that day who might have been asked, hey, you are helping us in the investigation of a particular domestic terrorism subject, we know that that person is traveling to the Capitol to attend this rally. Why don't you go with that person and let us know what they're doing? It's a way of keeping track of people who you think are potentially engaging in violence. It's a way of understanding what they're doing and giving you the opportunity to prevent acts of violence and terrorism from taking place.

So they'll -- you know, under those circumstances, that person would travel with the subject of the investigation and make phone calls or send texts back to a handling agent saying, here's where we're going to go tomorrow. We're going to stop here for breakfast. And then we're going to walk to the rally. Here's what I'll be wearing so you can identify me. Here's what the other person looks like. Just basic information that allows agents to keep some understanding, maintain an understanding of what a subject of an investigation is doing and to potentially collect evidence of that person's wrongdoing that might be necessary later in a criminal prosecution.

HUNT: So, Andy, the Vice President-elect, J.D. Vance, he reposted someone else that excerpted details on this report. And what that said was this, quote, "For those keeping score at home, this was labeled as a dangerous conspiracy theory months ago, this idea that there were human sources at the Capitol."

I mean, what is your -- and I think we've dug into this a little bit, but do you have a response to the Vice President-elect specifically?

MCCABE: You know, this wasn't ever labeled as a dangerous conspiracy. The fact that informants were involved in this activity, the fact that informants might have been reporting on subjects of investigation, as is their job, that's their role with the FBI, that's not a dangerous conspiracy theory. That's the truth. That's how intelligence agencies collect information on people who might be ready to hurt us.

The dangerous conspiracy theory was propagated by people like the Vice President who've been saying for years that the FBI incited this riot, that the FBI sent informants or undercover employees onto the Capitol or into the rally that day for the purpose of fomenting the riot, getting people fired up, starting the violence. That absolutely did not happen.

Now you have the inspector general who absolutely would have reported that if they found it in their investigation that included hundreds of interviews and many, many years to complete, which is a separate problem.

So, yeah, the dangerous conspiracy theory here is what you've been hearing from right-wing commentators, that the FBI somehow had an interest in creating the riot on the Capitol and starting an insurrection. That absolutely did not happen.

HUNT: All right. Andrew McCabe, very grateful to have you on the show today. Thanks very much.

MCCABE: Thank you.

HUNT: All right. Let's turn now to Donald Trump at the New York Stock Exchange yesterday, where he rang the opening bell after being named TIME's "Person of the Year." The President-elect also sitting down for an interview with the Magazine, he was asked about one of his biggest campaign promises, lowering grocery prices.

He was asked, quote, "If the prices of groceries don't come down, will your presidency be a failure?" He answered it this way, quote, "I don't think so. Look, they got them up. I'd like to bring them down. It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard. But I think that they will. I think that the energy -- energy is going to bring them down. I think a better supply chain is going to bring them down."

But while at the New York Stock Exchange, he seemed adamant that prices will come down once he's in office.

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TRUMP: I tell the story about a woman who -- an old woman, an old woman, no money, went to a grocery store, had three apples. She put them down on the counter and she looked and she saw the price and she said, would you excuse me? And she walked one of the apples back to the refrigerator and came back to pay for the two apples. And she left with two apples. And the woman at the counter said that was so sad. And when I heard about the story, I said that should never happen in America. And it's not going to happen in America. We're going to do it right.

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[06:40:11]

HUNT: So this, of course, always a difficult challenge for any president on the economy.

David Frum, this, of course, took place while he was at the New York Stock Exchange ringing the bell and was basically greeted like as a hero by many people that were on the floor of the exchange.

DAVID FRUM, STAFF WRITER, ATLANTIC: You know, there is a way for him to keep his promise to bring down grocery prices, and that is to bring modernization to America's ports, some of the least efficient ports in the world, made inefficient by terrible backward unionized practices that defeat modern technology. But unfortunately, just yesterday, President-elect Trump said he's not

going to do that, that he's going to defend the longshoremen's union and keep America's ports the least effective in some parts of the developed world.

So it's not like some unfortunate thing is happening to him that is going to make him break his promise on grocery prices. He has embraced technological backwardness, opposing medical technologies like vaccines, trade protection, point -- every element of the Donald Trump program is designed to make sure that people pay more. And when prices stay high, as they do, people need to remember it's not some terrible misfortune he inherited. He is the one who's preventing ports from becoming more efficient. He is the one who is going to impose duties on foreign goods, destroy American supply chains. That's his choice.

HUNT: Brad, I do say, I will say, I don't understand how grocery prices are going to go down if we put massive tariffs on Mexico, for example.

BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, wait a minute. I want to correct something David said there. Donald Trump's agenda is, first and foremost, the first thing is to bring the price of energy down.

Energy is one of the biggest drivers of all costs for companies that break consumer goods. Joe Biden, on his very first day, issued executive orders that on purpose pushed energy prices up. If you bring energy prices down, you can bring the price of goods down. That's number one.

Number two, regulations are strangling the economy. Donald Trump is going to embark on a big deregulatory campaign. That also can help bring prices down.

So I take issue that his agenda is to bring prices up. It's just not correct. A lot of the port problems in California due to Gavin Newsom's regulations on who can back their truck up to that port. Like, there are things we can do.

FRUM: Endorsed now by Donald Trump.

TODD: What? Pardon?

FRUM: Regulations endorsed now by Donald Trump.

TODD: No, they're environmental regulations driven by the state of California. It makes California's ports less efficient than the others on the East Coast.

HUNT: Uh, but the tariffs? No? I mean, at the end of it, is not -- does that all not counteracted by the tariffs?

TODD: I think certainly Mexico's a valued trade partner on agriculture and food products. Donald Trump has said he doesn't want to put tariffs on Mexico. He wants to put tariffs on Mexico if they won't control the border. This is a negotiating strategy. HUNT: All right. Coming up next here on CNN This Morning, the internet rallying behind the man accused of assassinating a CEO, raising thousands of dollars for his legal defense. Michael Smerconish is here to discuss that after the break.

Plus, unexplained phenomenon, drone sightings taking up in New Jersey. Sam Morris, the Mayor of Mine Hill, New Jersey, joins us next.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NEIL DEGRASSE TYSON, FAMOUS ASTROPHYSICIST: It would be odd for me to wonder what the aliens are looking for. No offense to New Jersey. I'm just saying there's the whole Earth they could have visited.

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[06:47:17]

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Went outside to prove my point and this is over my house right now. What is that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Floating white spots on a black background. A chilling image that cannot be faked unless you close your eyes and push on your eyelids a little bit. Oh God, they're back. Yeah, and they're gone and they're gone and they're back.

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HUNT: New Jersey residents and officials continuing to scratch their heads and demand answers as the drone sightings across the northern part of the state remain unanswered.

Our next guest has been meeting with law enforcement this week about the sightings and has captured some of these drones on video himself.

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MAYOR SAM MORRIS, MINE HILL, NEW JERSEY: There's a pair of drones right here in front of me. One's hovering. This one you can see, of course, is getting a little grayed out. And this one keeps moving to the north. And there was another one that just went off to the north. You can see this red blinking light. It's a little hard to see, but the drone is right by the light.

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HUNT: All right, joining us now is the mayor of Mine Hill, New Jersey, Sam Morris.

Sir, welcome to the program. Thanks for being here.

MORRIS: Good morning. Thanks for having me. HUNT: So I want to play for you a little bit of what John Kirby, the White House Communications Director for National Security, said about these drones yesterday and ask you about it. Let's watch what he said.

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JOHN KIRBY, NATIONAL SECURITY COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: We have not been able to, and neither have state or local law enforcement authorities, corroborate any of the reported visual sightings. To the contrary, upon review of available imagery, it appears that many of the reported sightings are actually manned aircraft that are being operated lawfully.

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HUNT: Sir, is that true?

MORRIS: No, it's blatantly not true. Mr. Kirby has given us the swamp gas scenario, I guess.

In a briefing on Tuesday with the state police, they told us they had engaged with drones. They told us that the drones react to their engagement, which is when they get close to them, they turn off their safety lights and they pretty much start scurrying away or taking off. That was directly from the state police in a briefing with 250 mayors. So I have witnesses.

And for Mr. Kirby to say that no state officials -- I think he said, corroborate this, just means he hasn't talked to the New Jersey state

police, which is kind of ridiculous considering this is where it's all occurring.

HUNT: So what do you see at night? We played a little bit of your video there.

[06:50:00]

MORRIS: Last night, for example, so the governor and also Mr. Kirby have said that people are mistaking manned -- they say manned aircraft, they mean small planes or even big planes, for drones. There is some of that. There's probably 50% of that because people aren't getting any answers. They may be confusing things.

But when you go out in the last night, for example, went out in the parking lot here at Town Hall, and you can see there are airplane routes that go into Newark, Teterboro, Morristown. We all know that, right?

But then there are anomalies that go in other directions. And last night, there was a something went through here that had eight or 10 lights on it. The lights flash red and green and white.

Planes have a blue light, I think, on the right wing, what we would call the right wing. And these drones do not have those colors. So that's what you see when you go out there. It's something that just, it doesn't make sense and it stands out and you know it's not a plane. HUNT: Sir, is there any suggestion or what have you heard from your state officials about what they think that it could be and whether they think the federal government knows more than what they're telling people?

MORRIS: I think the federal government knows more than they're telling people. I certainly wouldn't speak for the New Jersey State Police or the governor's office or anyone like that. They have not speculated. Any meetings and conversations we have, they just -- they won't speculate.

But I think that Mr. Kirby knows more than he's telling. And I'm pretty offended and I can tell you a lot of my constituents are offended that they basically made light of this, that -- well, this is -- this really isn't real. And when he says it's not corroborated, that's just a falsehood.

So I think they need to consider walking that back and being a little more honest about all this.

HUNT: All right, Mayor Sam Morris, keep us posted. Come back if you need to. Appreciate your information. Thanks for being here.

MORRIS: Thanks so much.

HUNT: All right. Let's turn back now to this story. It's really captivated the country. The Manhattan DA presenting evidence to a grand jury in the case against Luigi Mangione, according to "ABC News." "ABC News" also reporting that quote, "law enforcement officials are worried that Mangione is being turned into a martyr as a wave of internet supporters donate to defense funds for the 26-year- old suspected killer, including one online defense fund that has raised more than $50,000.

News Nation cameras even capturing this expression of support from inmates at the Pennsylvania prison where Mangione is being held.

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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Luigi's conditions suck. Free Luigi.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: Free Luigi. It's Friday, which means it's time for Michael Smerconish, CNN Political Commentator, Host of CNN Smerconish.

Michael, welcome. Always wonderful to see you. Happy Friday. Let's start with what we saw there. The News Nation cameras outside that prison, people yelling free Luigi. That makes a real statement.

MICHAEL SMERCONISH, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: So on Wednesday, I was in New York City to do my radio program at Sirius XM. And in the 6 a.m. hour, I walked on 54th Street between 6th and 7th Avenue, not because of some morbid curiosity, but because that's where I stay when I'm in New York City. That's my route. And what I found jarring was the lack of any kind of a memorial where this assassination took place. In other words, I'm walking on the sidewalk where one week prior in the exact same hour, the 6 a.m. hour, this healthcare CEO, father of two, was gunned down in cold blood. And there's no remembrance. There's no recollection. There's like nothing. People are just going about their business and leading their lives.

And I thought this is so telling of the reversal of sympathies that I find appalling. And by the way, we can do two things at once. We can mourn the man who paid with his life unnecessarily. And we can recognize the errors in our healthcare system and try and work to bring about change.

I've never seen, Kasie, in the three decades that I've been behind this microphone taking telephone calls from across the country, I've never seen the visceral reaction as I have in this case.

My callers appropriately mourn the loss of life and at the same time say, but you know, I've got a relative who can't get coverage or I've had this issue of my own.

We can do both things. I would like to think that change comes from it. But for goodness sakes, can we please be appropriate in how we recall what happened a week ago Wednesday? Because it was God awful.

HUNT: Yeah, of course. It was absolutely God awful. One kind of question I've sort of wrestled with a little bit is whether this may, because it's exposed all this anger, ultimately lead to some change, some political change.

[06:55:06]

Because obviously that would suggest that violence in this case affects political change, which is not a place we want to go in American politics. But that said, clearly, there are millions of Americans. And honestly, I can't find anybody. I'm pretty sure everybody's sitting at this table. I have my own story about dealing with these health care companies, right? And how hard it is.

SMERCONISH: I think that you've really put your finger on the conundrum for politicians. And that is, how do you take action but not be perceived as responding to the violence and therefore rewarding it?

I'm sure you're aware of the fact that there are wanted posters being placed in midtown Manhattan as we speak that are identifying corporate CEOs and healthcare individuals.

I mean, it's horrific. And we don't -- we don't want to condone and encourage that sort of behavior. So how you strike the balance and say, this man's murder was horrible, and we're going to deal with it legally and through the law enforcement system, and at the same time, be responsive to the concerns that so many have.

There's nothing more important, right? If you don't have your health, what's the old adage? You have nothing if not your health. So I get it. But we've got to be able to do both. HUNT: All right. Michael Smerconish for us. Sir, always grateful to have you in the program. See you next Friday. Thank you.

SMERCONISH: Nice to see you. Thank you.

HUNT: Our viewers, don't forget, tune in to Smerconish tomorrow morning, 9 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

All right, let's turn to this story. President-elect Donald Trump is signaling that he is open to changing childhood vaccination programs once he receives a safety review from RFK Jr., his pick for Health and Human Services Secretary.

Trump telling TIME Magazine in an interview released Thursday, quote, "We're going to have a big discussion. The autism rate is at a that nobody ever believed possible. If you look at things that are happening, there is something causing it."

I sat down with RFK Jr. last year. I asked him to clarify his position on vaccine mandates.

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HUNT: So do you think school children should not be required to be vaccinated in public schools?

ROBERT KENNEDY JR., TRUMP'S PICK FOR HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: No. I would be against mandates at all.

HUNT: For any vaccines for children.

KENNEDY JR.: Any vaccine.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HUNT: It's important to note that multiple health agencies have found vaccinations are not associated with autism spectrum disorder.

Our panel has returned. There's also a noteworthy story that just came out in the "New York Times" an hour or so ago, looking at the lawyer that RFK Jr. works with, apparently very involved with the transition and hiring. And they say that this lawyer has asked the FDA to revoke approval of the polio vaccine.

Now, this happened a couple of years ago. This was back in 2022. But he has petitioned the government to revoke the approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death. That campaign is just one front in a war that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, is waging against vaccines of all kinds.

Much of Mr. Siri's work, including the polio petition, has been on behalf of the Informed Consent Action Network. It's a nonprofit whose founder is an ally of Mr. Kennedy. And this is also the lawyer that represented Kennedy during his presidential campaign. This is significant stuff. FRUM: Donald Trump has always been an autism hoaxer. He tried in his first administration in 2017 to bring RFK Jr. in then. Trump has often said things that imply completely falsely that saving children from measles and other deadly diseases is the reason that autism occurs, which is, by the way, a slur on autistic people. It's not a tragedy that there are autistic people. Measles is a tragedy. It's ignorant. It's emotive. It's point -- it's anti-science. But that's been Donald Trump's position on this all along.

And RFK Jr. --

HUNT: Trump did undertake Operation Warp Speed.

FRUM: He certainly -- that certainly happened during his presidency. That's true.

ELLIOT WILLIAMS, CNN LEGAL ANALYST: And then he did not admit that he took -- that he got the shot and the virus and then never talked about it because his supporters hated it. He got booed off the stage when he admitted he got the booster.

FRUM: If you do the searches, you will find many more anti-vax statements by Donald Trump.

WILLIAMS: Yeah.

FRUM: Going back before he was president, going back to his first term. You know, we're going back to barbaric ignorance. And that's sort of the price we pay.

TODD: Well, Kamala Harris said she was not going to take the COVID vaccine. She's the original anti-COVID vaxxer. So I mean, we have a lot of -- and there's anti-vax sentiment on the left as well. Of course, we don't need to get rid of the polio vaccine.

And also, of course, we do need to look into autism more, right? The diagnosis of autism is radically on the rise. It'd be the best thing ever if the Department of Health and Human Services could get -- spend more resources on diagnosing that problem.

WILLIAMS: I think we lost our minds during the pandemic and the -- as a country. And the fight over vaccines has now led to people seriously talking about ending the polio vaccine, and it's sickening.

[07:00:03]

HUNT: Yeah, I'll just say that I would like my children to be able to receive the polio vaccine.

WILLIAMS: Yes.

HUNT: And I've actually already tried to call Mitch McConnell's office about this.

FRUM: Your children will, but you'd like the other children in the class also not to be spreaders of polio.

HUNT: Well, and that's why -- that's why I asked RFK Jr. about mandates, because that is, you know, what -- what enables public schools to say to their -- to people, hey, you got to protect your kids to be here.

Guys, thank you for being here on a Friday. I appreciate it.

Thanks to all of you for joining us as well. Have a wonderful weekend.

I'm Kasie Hunt. Don't go anywhere. CNN News Central starts right now.