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CNN This Morning
Musk & Trump Sink Bipartisan Spending Deal; House Ethics Committee Votes to Release Gaetz Report. Aired 6-6:30a ET
Aired December 19, 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 Thursday, December 19. Right now on CNN THIS MORNING.
[05:58:32]
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We just won the elections. We have a mandate, and he's giving away the farm.
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HUNT: Shutdown standoff. A GOP-backed spending bill scrapped after Donald Trump and Elon Musk criticized the deal.
Plus --
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MATT GAETZ (R), FORMER FLORIDA REPRESENTATIVE: Like, if the things that the House Ethics report were true, I would be under indictment and probably in a prison cell.
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HUNT: An abrupt turn. The House Ethics Committee deciding to release its report on Matt Gaetz after all.
And --
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UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I'm so mad at these politicians who wrote this law, thinking that TikTok was just some silly dancing app.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: TikTok under threat. The Supreme Court will now hear arguments on whether the app should be banned next month.
And later, Amazon on strike. Workers planning to walk off the job this morning, right in the middle of the most critical holiday shopping days.
All right, 6 a.m. on the East Coast. A live look at Capitol Hill, the scene of all the action this week, for better or for worse.
Good morning, everyone. I'm Kasie Hunt. It's wonderful to have you with us.
Governing by tweet. Donald Trump has yet to be sworn in, and already a day of tweeting -- posting -- derailed the funding bill that would have kept the government's lights on through Christmas.
What does that remind you of?
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I haven't read his tweets, so I'm not going to comment on something I haven't read.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: To find out you've been fired by tweet is not exactly, you know, reassuring in terms of the conduct of government.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know. I can't really comment, because I don't know anything about it.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Well, I didn't see the tweet. I thought I saw the tweets this morning. I missed that one.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I just saw the tweet, and I know nothing of the episode.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: Except, in this incoming Trump administration, they are not just Donald Trump's tweets. They are also Elon Musk's.
The incoming head of DOGE already pulling strings behind the scenes, despite the highest-ranking elected Republican in Washington scrambling to try to convince him not to blow it all up.
Here was House Speaker Mike Johnson yesterday morning before everything collapsed around him.
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REP. MIKE JOHNSON (R-LA): I was communicating with Elon last night. Elon and Vivek and I are on a text chain together. And I was explaining to them the background of this.
Remember, guys, we still have just a razor-thin margin of Republicans, so any bill has to have Democrat votes. They understand the situation. They said it's not directed to you, Mr. Speaker, but we don't like the spending. I said, guess what, fellows? I don't either.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: So, that interview yesterday morning. And he's saying that the night before, he's texting Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy to try to convince them that this is what everybody should do. But needless to say, the texts did not cut it. Over the ensuing hours -- and in fact, it started before Johnson even went on FOX -- Elon Musk posted dozens of times, dozens. A sample: quote, "Kill the bill. One of the worst bills ever written. Stop the steal of your tax dollars."
And Republicans in Congress, well, they answered Elon's call. Slowly at first and then seemingly all at once, Republicans in Congress began coming out against the funding bill.
And as the afternoon wore on, Musk began reposting them, saying, "Thank you" and "Great."
Of course, everyone -- especially, it seems the House speaker -- was waiting for President-elect Trump to weigh in. He finally did at 5:13 p.m. Eastern on Wednesday, posting on his own social media website, quote, "Republicans must get smart and tough. If Democrats threaten to shut down the government unless we give them everything they want, then call their bluff," end quote.
Trump saying he would support funding the government if Congress also raises the debt ceiling for two years. We'll discuss why that's all but impossible for Johnson in just a moment.
But the question that the events of yesterday raises is this: who is really calling the shots? Donald Trump or Elon Musk? And who will be calling the shots in January after the president is sworn in?
Democrats and Trump critics quick to argue it's actually the world's richest man.
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UNIDENTIFIED MALE: The decision was made after posts from one individual. And a lot of my colleagues changed their positions based on that.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: And all of a sudden, Donald Trump scrambled to try to kill it, because his puppet master said so.
ADAM KINZINGER (R), FORMER ILLINOIS REPRESENTATIVE: President Musk, this morning, made it clear, with all his vast government experience -- which is basically he became rich on the federal government -- that he doesn't want Republicans to pass this. And seemingly, Vice President Trump kind of backed him up then at that point. And what --
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HUNT: All right. Joining us now to discuss: Kayla Tausche, CNN senior White House correspondent. Annie Linskey is a reporter for the "Wall Street Journal." Kate Bedingfield, CNN political commentator, former Biden White House communications director. And Brad Todd, CNN political commentator, Republican strategist.
Welcome to all of you.
KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning. HUNT: Brad, here we are again. It feels so familiar. I was in the
hallways when many of those early bites that we played, played out in public.
But this. I mean, it felt to me like there was some tension yesterday, with Elon Musk going at this, and at this, and at this, and everyone waiting to see what Trump was going to do. And he ultimately went with Musk.
But I mean, who -- who's in charge?
BRAD TODD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think, first of all, this bill was in trouble from the start. All continuing resolutions. That's what they call these, CRs, at the end of the year, to try to keep the government open for a few more months. They're always hard to pass with Republican votes. Very few Republican votes [SIC] want to vote for any government spending, much less a temporary government spending measure.
HUNT: Yes. And does Elon get that? Like, he's going to need Democrats to actually do this?
TODD: I don't know if he does or not. I mean, he's new to this game of trying to cobble together 218 cats and move them in the same direction, which is hard.
HUNT: Governing is hard.
TODD: Governing is hard.
I think that the bill was already in trouble. Mike Johnson had made a lot of deals with Democrats to get a lot of Democrat votes. That's always an art.
You know, how many -- how far do you have to go to get enough Democrats? And what's too far? Because then you can't get any Republicans.
I think consensus was emerging on Capitol Hill, from Republicans I talked to, that this bill perhaps was a little bit too far already. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy and Donald Trump pushed it over the edge, but it was already in trouble.
Now, from Trump's perspective, I think he's doubling down at a very interesting spot here. He's trying to get the debt ceiling with the CR. That's a big, big gamble, because it's a very --
[06:05:12]
HUNT: You think you need Democratic votes for government funding CRs?
TODD: Correct.
HUNT: You really need Democratic votes to raise the debt ceiling.
TODD: Correct, correct. Now, if he wins, he's got -- it's a huge win for him. He takes a problem away from June. That would -- that would be one of his first tough votes for House Republicans later.
But I don't know. Now he owns the problem.
KATE BEDINGFIELD, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: I'm curious as to what the conversations, if any, were between the Johnson team and the Trump team prior to -- to Trump's public announcement.
I mean, everybody was sort of waiting publicly to see where Trump would go, especially after Musk started tweeting. But presumably, you would think the Johnson team was touching base with -- was talking to the Trump team before he put the big package forward.
So, I would just be interested -- or maybe not.
TODD: Most certainly. Almost certainly.
BEDINGFIELD: And if he -- and if he wasn't, I mean, that's --
TAUSCHE: Or is Elon Musk does, right (ph)?
BEDINGFIELD: So, it's just I'm curious that, you know, there -- there -- I would love to see some of those texts between the team and Johnson prior to this big bill coming out. Because presumably, Johnson thought he was going to get some level of support, or at least not --
HUNT: He was out there publicly arguing for it.
BEDINGFIELD: -- was going to have it -- have it set on fire.
HUNT: Yes, exactly.
ANNIE LINSKEY, REPORTER, "WALL STREET JOURNAL": They spent four hours together sitting next to each other at the Army-Navy game just last weekend.
HUNT: Yes.
LINSKEY: So, you kind of wonder if that -- this topic came up as they were sort of chit-chatting during the game.
HUNT: Yes. Kayla, I mean, what's your reporting around this?
TAUSCHE: Well, my reporting is that Trump's own economic advisers were surprised by the position that he decided to take on the debt ceiling, because everyone's understanding was that they had until June to figure out at least what their position was.
I mean, back in Trump's first term at -- on some days, he woke up and decided that he wanted to abolish the debt ceiling altogether. And there really wasn't a unified stance on how they were going to approach it, except for the fact that by getting spending done until March, you at least bought yourself a little bit of time to get the key nominees confirmed, to get the party to coalesce around what their critical ideas were, maybe even to get a reconciliation bill passed with kay energy and immigration measures. Have a few wins in your pocket and then figure out, OK, we have this very, very thorny debt ceiling that's awaiting us. How are we going to approach it? Which votes are we going to need to get? And to really have that strategy coalesce.
Now it seems that there's a view that Trump wants all the bad things to happen on his predecessor's watch, that he wants a shutdown to potentially happen on his predecessor's watch, because it hasn't yet so far in Biden's term.
He wants debt to be added to the federal ledger on Biden's watch, because one of the criticisms that Democrats have had so far is that the debt has ballooned under Republicans, not necessarily Democrats.
HUNT: Right.
TAUSCHE: And so, there is also an element where he wants to flip the script on this a little bit.
HUNT: So, I take all that, right? The -- this massive agenda and this, like, "to do" list.
The events of yesterday suggest that doing any single piece of that "to do" list, let alone the entire thing, is going to be all but impossible in this environment.
TODD: Well, this also has -- the bill is bigger than this. It also has the farm bill in it. It also has reforms on pharmaceutical benefit managers, which has actually helped generate money to offset some of the farm bill costs and the disaster relief costs for Western North Carolina.
So, there are a lot of things in here.
Now, we haven't also talked about Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries, because they drove the hard bargain that was making this bill toxic with Republicans. Maybe they got too greedy in their negotiations.
BEDINGFIELD: Well, but at the end of the day, Republicans are going to own whatever the fallout is here. I mean, Trump and --
HUNT: Because Trump is already acting like he's the president.
BEDINGFIELD: Yes. I mean, he's completely thrown his arms around it. So, you know, I mean, I think this is also a good reminder that, you know, Trump -- Trump loves the performance element. He loves the campaign element, the messaging element. He doesn't so much love the governing element.
And when you are the president, and you actually have to get into these hard tradeoffs and these hard choices; and you have to fund the government so that people are, you know, getting their Social Security checks and veterans are getting their benefits. Sometimes that requires a level of nuance that Trump hates.
TAUSCHE: But Kasie, it's worth noting how this movie ended before, because Trump is no stranger to government shutdowns. He has a very strong stomach for them. Back in 2018, when he really wanted nearly $6 billion in funding to
build the wall on the Southern border, he shut down the government for 35 days and ultimately ended up backing off of that demand, because the economic effects of having government workers miss two paychecks. You have FAA controllers not reporting for work.
HUNT: Yes. Yes.
TAUSCHE: I mean, that became so onerous that he simply couldn't stand the political fallout of that. Whether he's actually willing to go up to the line or cross it this time remains to be seen. But certainly, he's done it before.
LINSKEY: And just your daily reminder that Trump is not the president. It is -- it is Joe Biden.
TODD: Where is the president?
HUNT: Well, we're going to talk a lot about Annie's terrific reporting in "The Journal" that sort of sheds some light on -- on that question here later on in the hour.
All right. Coming up here on CNN THIS MORNING, deportation promises. The incoming Trump administration working on how to carry out its mass deportation plan.
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TOM HOMAN, TRUMP'S PICK FOR BORDER CZAR: If you're here illegally, you're not off the table.
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HUNT: Democratic congresswoman Melanie Stansbury, who represents the border state of New Mexico, will be here to discuss.
Plus, on strike. Amazon workers walking off the job just moments ago.
And the House Ethics Committee could release its report on Matt Gaetz, basically at any moment.
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[06:10:07]
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If the Ethics Committee feels that the evidence about Matt Gaetz's behavior is so damning and so concerning that they want to release it, I think that it should be released.
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JOHNSON: Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress. He is no longer a member. There's a very important protocol and tradition and rule that we maintain that the House Ethics Committee's jurisdiction does not extend to non-members of Congress. I think that would be a Pandora's box.
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HUNT: That was House Speaker Mike Johnson, urging the Ethics Committee to keep a report into Matt Gaetz under wraps a month ago.
But now the committee seems ready to open that Pandora's box. Sources tell CNN the panel authorized the report's release in a secret vote earlier this month. It is now expected to be made public any day now before Congress leaves Washington for the holidays.
The report caps a years-long probe by the Ethics Committee into allegations that Gaetz engaged in sexual misconduct, used illicit drugs and, quote, "shared inappropriate images or videos" on the House floor.
Gaetz posted on X, denying any wrongdoing, writing, "I was charged with nothing, not even a campaign finance violation. My 30s were an era of working very hard and playing too hard. It's embarrassing, though not criminal, that I probably partied, womanized, drank, and smoked more than I should have earlier in life. I live a different life now."
Gaetz also reiterated his innocence in an interview last month after his bid to be the next attorney general fell apart.
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GAETZ: Look, if the things that the House ethics report were true, I would be under indictment and probably in a prison cell. But of course, they're false.
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HUNT: OK, let's -- let's circle back to that, that -- that note about videos and things that were shown on the House floor and what some of his colleagues learned about his life, because Gaetz told them about it.
Here was now-Senator, former House member Markwayne Mullin.
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SEN. MARKWAYNE MULLIN (R-OK): As far as Matt Gaetz himself, you got to think about this guy. This is a guy that didn't have that -- the media didn't give a time of day to, after he was accused of sleeping with an underage girl.
And there's a reason why no one in the conference came and defended him, because we had all seen the videos he was showing on the House floor, that all of us had walked away, of the girls that he had slept with. He'd brag about how he would crush E.D. medicine and -- and chase it with -- with an energy drink so he could go all night. (END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: I mean, there you have it. Very clear, Brad Todd, it seems to me.
TODD: In a town full of reptiles, Matt Gaetz is the least popular snake.
And you know, it's -- the lesson in all of this is Matt Gaetz made no friends. He helped nobody with their objectives in the U.S. House. And so therefore, no one's ready to stand up for him right now.
He also bragged about his exploits, according to Markwayne Mullin and others. So, it's no surprise, I think, that these members of the Ethics Committee, they don't want to be on the hook for this. They want to -- they want the world to know what they know, because they don't want to be accused of covering up for him.
Something else happened, though. Ballots dropped in the 1st District of Florida yesterday. Absentee ballots did in the special election to replace Matt Gaetz. He's about to be a footnote in history. This may be the last story we write about him.
BEDINGFIELD: And I would imagine they're also -- the same people are trying to kind of put a political nail in his coffin, too, right? There's been discussion of, does he run for governor someday?
I would imagine that these members of the Ethics Committee looked at the report and said, you know what? We need to make sure that we do everything that we can to ensure that there is no great political revival here.
HUNT: Because we should underscore that it does -- The Ethics Committee is basically the only committee in Congress that is split directly down the middle, right? So even if -- it doesn't matter, Republicans, Democrats control the entire situation. There were Republicans here that had to say, we want this out.
LINSKEY: Yes, absolutely. I mean, I think -- and I think that also goes to a larger point, that there were Republicans who stood up to their own party and stood -- and, you know, to Brad's point, this is not a particularly popular member of the party. But it is still a difficult thing to do. And I do think that Republicans get credit for doing it.
TAUSCHE: You also have to think about the timing here, too. I mean, it's going to be released before members leave Washington, assuming they leave Washington in the next couple of days.
And so, it also begs the question where you have the president-elect, who's a master at changing the narrative, whether part of the shutdown approach is to perhaps divert attention away from whatever the contents of this report are, given how damaging they're expected to be.
Just judging by Matt Gaetz's own response. I mean, the detail that he goes into in responding to what he expects will be in this report just gives you a little bit of an idea what's expected to be in there.
HUNT: Yes. Is it just me or like for most of us does this stuff? I mean, the partying too hard. Let's set aside the more, you know, problematic allegations. Like your 30s?
LINSKEY: Yes.
BEDINGFIELD: Maybe your 20s. Much younger, 35. Like, OK.
HUNT: All right.
Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, a close call in California. A new up-close look at a destructive tornado. It's one of the five things you have to see this morning.
Plus, TikTok on the docket. The Supreme Court will hear the case for and against banning TikTok as soon as next month.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[06:24:19]
HUNT: All right, 23 minutes past the hour. Five things you have to see this morning.
Dash cam video captures the moment a tornado swept through Scotts V alley, California, over the weekend, overturning a truck. The owner was inside a store when it happened. The truck, of course, was totaled.
We call this story man on fire. How about liar, liar, pants on fire? Police in New York trying to find a man who fled an alleged porta potty arson with his pants on fire. Oh, boy.
OK. And this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
THOMAS CONLEY, THIRD GRADER: It's because that I don't want Isaiah to die.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HUNT: A Heimlich hero. Third grader Thomas Conley honored by Mesa, Arizona, fire officials for saving a classmate who was choking on a grape.
Thomas applied the Heimlich maneuver and saved his friend's life.
A twerking thief has had a change of heart. Porch pirates caught on camera taking a package while busting a move from a New Jersey home.
After the homeowner shared the video, the dancing suspect came back and returned one of the items.
OK, 2025 has arrived in Times Square. The seven-foot-tall numbers will soon light up the sky for the New Year's Eve ball drop. But until next Wednesday, they will sit in the streets of Times Square for photo ops.
Really can't believe it's already 2025. Where has the time gone?
All right. Still ahead here on CNN THIS MORNING, Trump going after Liz Cheney, and lawmakers are mixed on a GOP report calling for her investigation.
Plus, a brand-new report out this morning detailing how the White House operates with a, quote, "diminished leader." Joe Biden getting ready to leave Washington after five decades of public service.
(BEGI VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I said, "My name is Joe Biden."
He said, "I know you're not Senator Bi."
And I said, "No. I said my name is Biden, Senator Biden."
He said, "Who in the hell is he?"
(END VIDEO CLIP)
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