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MAGA Infighting Takes Center Stage; Rep. Suhas Suramanyam (R- VA) Is Interviewed about Venezuela; Minaj Praises Trump. Aired 6:30-7a ET

Aired December 22, 2025 - 06:30   ET

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

[06:30:00]

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR: Hearing also is an Indian American.

Can you talk about how -- why he's being vocal on this issue in a way that J.D. Vance isn't?

JIM RENACCI (R), FORMER OHIO CONGRESSMAN: Well, look, Vivek is 100 percent correct. We have a very small fraction of the Republican Party that seems to want to go down this path. And it's just not -- should not be acceptable, especially for conservative Republicans. People should denounce any hateful thoughts or ideas against any ethnic group. And I think this is what Vivek is trying to call out and should be calling out. It's not really the Republican way, and it's really not the conservative way either.

CORNISH: He's literally in the minority, it seems, talking about it. And I understand right now he does not even have the backing of the governor in Ohio. What's going on there that maybe we're not seeing?

RENACCI: Well, look, Vivek continues to walk -- get across this state -- great state and talk about his ideas and issues. But it's early. And I think what's happening is people are getting to know him, they're getting to know his policies and his positions and he's gaining a lot of momentum.

CORNISH: But DeWine knows him, right? I mean it feels like this is a person who does know who he is. Why do you think there's reluctance?

RENACCI: Well, this governor's been very interesting over the years. I ran against this governor because in many ways I didn't believe he was a conservative Republican either. And I think Vivek, in a way, is calling him out at the same time.

CORNISH: When you look at what spilled over at TPS USA, that conversation about anti-Semitism happening. Ben Shapiro, in that case, a commentator calling it out. And then you have people calling back to them, rejecting what they're saying. What did you make of the way that these fractures spilled into the public view?

RENACCI: Well, again, we do know there's a fracture in this movement, which we'll call MAGA. And that's what a lot of people don't realize that MAGA is really a coalition. And there is a small fraction of that coalition that is anti-Semitic. Whether it's Nick Fuentes and some of the things he are saying, they should be rejected because Donald Trump and the majority elected officials do not, you know, do not really speak this way or do not -- they are firmly pro-Israel. Their views are anti-Semitic, and, in many ways, you know, we have this small fracture of the party that really doesn't speak for the entire conservative MAGA movement as a -- as a -- and it is part of the problem. And it does need to be called out.

CORNISH: Do you think J.D. Vance should have said more? He took the stage to say that he wouldn't be calling out particular names. You had other people say they wouldn't want to excommunicate anyone from the party. Should they have drawn a hard red line on this issue?

RENACCI: Well, again, I think everybody has to take their own position when you're running for office, which, again, I think J.D.'s going to be running for president here real soon. He's going to try and pull these coalitions back together. That may be one of the ways he does it. But in the end, they -- anybody that has this hateful thought of ethnic groups should not be pulled into the party. They should actually be pushed out of the party, in my opinion, because that's really not the conservative Republican base that has made the MAGA movement or the coalition what it really is today.

CORNISH: OK. Jim Renacci from Ohio, thanks so much.

RENACCI: Thank you.

CORNISH: OK, I want to talk more about the speeches at that Turning Point USA conference. It was the first since the death of Charlie Kirk. Supposed to be a weekend of unity. Instead, tensions among conservatives took center stage. So, conservative podcaster Ben Shapiro got up, takes a swipe at Candace Owens. Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon then takes aim at Shapiro

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BEN SHAPIRO, CONSERVATIVE PODCASTER: There's a reason that Charlie Kirk despised Nick Fuentes and indeed even chided Dinesh Dsouza for debating him. He knew that Nick Fuentes is an evil troll, and that building him up is an act of moral imbecility. And that is precisely what Tucker Carlson did.

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP ADVISER: Ben Shapiro is like a cancer. And that cancer spreads. It's a cancer and it metastasizes. He tried to take over Breitbart, and I ran him out of there. He tried to take over David Horowitz, who was his mentor. Don't ask me, ask the guys associated with David Horowitz what he did there. He tried to take that over. And mark my word, he will make a move on Turning Point.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, group chat is back.

I wanted to talk about this because, in the aftermath of Kirk's death, it became very clear how valuable people believed him and his following and the machinery of TP USA to be.

[06:35:05]

Sara, I want to start with you, just because of the media of it all. These were the voices. And this was all public.

SARA FISCHER, CNN SENIOR MEDIA ANALYST: All very, very, very messy and very public. So, what we're finding is there's three issues that have come to just completely divide MAGA media. The first being anti- Semitism. Clearly, Ben Shapiro, Jewish, feels very strongly about not allowing anti-Semitic voices like Nick Fuentes into the conversation, whereas other MAGA media personalities, Tucker Carlson, feel much more comfortable inviting that voice in.

The second would be hate speech and freedom of speech. Charlie Kirk was all about having freedom of speech. And now there's questions about to what extent you support freedom of speech if you support certain kinds of hate speech.

And then the third is the Epstein files, of course. Steve Bannon has appeared in some of these photos with Jeffrey Epstein. That one hasn't divided this particular group as much, but it is dividing the MAGA party.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: And what we're coming to see is that ahead of the midterms, this is a very bad place for the Republican Party to be.

CORNISH: Oh, someone spoke about that. Donald Trump Jr. got on stage, and here's what he had to say, trying to get people to understand the stakes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP JR., PRESIDENT TRUMP'S SON: Midterms are coming around the corner. And make no mistake, the Democrat Party wants to do whatever they possibly can to shut this movement down. Not just the Democrats. The rhinos. You see the manufactured attacks on J.D., myself, my father, anyone who understands that this isn't the Republican Party anymore. It's the America first party. It's the make America great again party. And we are not going back.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

ZACHARY WOLF, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL WRITER: I mean, what you see, I think, is kind of the beginnings of the post-Trump era taking hold a little bit here. Donald Trump is term limited. He said he's not going to run again because that's what the Constitution says. And you see these different factions kind of start to bubble up.

CORNISH: Yes. Because we've got polling out now. And right now we were asking people, this is a CNN poll, who would you like to see run for the White House? And I think 67 percent said no person in mind. So, people aren't ready. But the people who are, J.D. Vance has got a little bit of an advantage. TAL KOPAN, DEPUTY WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, "THE BOSTON GLOBE": Yes, I

mean, when I look at this, the thing I'm also looking at is, is -- I wish we could see it against name I.D., because these are all individuals who have very high name I.D.

CORNISH: So, it's just names I can remember.

KOPAN: And so the -- but so the -- but the fact that their support levels are so far beyond what I presume to be their level of name recognition means that there are not a lot of enthusiastic sort of folks being like, yes, this is my -- this is my crew. I'm ready to go.

And we have -- we have a lot of time before 2028. And that's how primaries work. But we've been through several election cycles now where there was a very early frontrunner. Whether it was Trump in 2016, Biden in 2020, Trump again.

CORNISH: Yes.

KOPAN: But they came in with like 30 to 40 percent that never eroded. And you just don't see anyone yet ready to clear the field on either side.

FISCHER: On the (INAUDIBLE), Chris Christie and Rand Paul were the 2016 frontrunners.

CORNISH: Right.

FISCHER: Like, you truly never know.

I look at this, though, and what's jarring to me, the Democrats have really got their messaging in line. Health care, health care, health care, health care all the way down the ballot.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: Republicans on the other end, infighting, immigration, oil strikes, a little bit of the economy. There is no consistent down ballot message. That is what killed them in the midterms in 2018.

CORNISH: Right.

FISCHER: That is what could possibly really kill them in 2025 -- six (ph).

CORNISH: I want to play one more thing for you. J.D. Vance, in the face of all this going back and forth, he's the one knitting it together. He's the one who captured an endorsement of a kind from Erika Kirk. And what he has said is, "so, if you love America, if you want all of us to be richer, stronger, safer, prouder, you have to -- you have a home in this team. And he said, I didn't bring a list of conservatives to denounce or to deplatform. And I don't really care if some people out there will denounce me after this speech."

Sort of like, in the face of this conversation about anti-Semitism, he's like, well, I'm not going to get in that business. FISCHER: Yes, because he needs the support of all these people to be

the frontrunner. He understands. Him and Donald Trump Jr. understand the stakes that are here. But everyone else is playing a very different game. Ben Shapiro, Megan Kelly, Steve Bannon, they're not running for office. They're just trying to make sure they command --

CORNISH: They're running for clicks.

FISCHER: Yes, they command a certain audience that they can continue their media business. It's totally different incentives.

WOLF: Well, and for so long the party has literally just been following whatever Donald Trump said.

CORNISH: Yes.

WOLF: If he goes into a direction, they followed him. And they're not going to have that anymore. At least it won't be as powerful. So --

CORNISH: So, what is the compass?

WOLF: Splinter.

CORNISH: Yes. OK, we're going to talk a little more about this later. But in the meantime, if you missed any of the conversation, you want to catch up on what we were talking about or share it, know that we are a podcast. And right now you're looking at the QR code on the screen to find it, because CNN THIS MORNING is available anywhere you get your podcasts.

[06:40:08]

And next on CNN, we're going to talk about why president Vance is in the middle of this Republican rift and whether he can repair it.

Plus.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ERIKA KIRK, CEO, TURNING POINT USA: I love this woman. She's an amazing woman.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: A moment for life. Nicki Minaj makes her Turning Point USA debut, and it has set social media on fire.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. TIM KAINE (D-VA): We should be using sanctions and other tools at our disposal to punish this dictator who is violating the human rights of his civilians and has run the Venezuelan economy into the ground.

[06:45:05] But I'll tell you, we should not be waging war against Venezuela.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: The Trump administration's aggressive moves on Venezuela, concerning for lawmakers. The attempted seizure of another oil tanker by U.S. Coast Guard officials off Venezuela's coast this weekend is only adding to worries of a potential broader conflict. Even as the White House argues those actions are necessary to enforce sanctions and hold the Maduro regime accountable.

Joining us now is Virginia Democratic Congressman and House Oversight Committee Member Suhas Subramanyam.

Thank you so much for being with us.

REP. SUHAS SURAMANYAM (R-VA): Thank you.

CORNISH: Now, for -- a couple weeks ago, after the double-tap strikes, you really had strong scrutiny, bipartisan scrutiny from lawmakers on both sides of Venezuela. Where is that energy now? Do you expect to see more lawmakers speaking up?

SURAMANYAM: I would hope so. Remember, the administration's justification for this war, essentially, is that they want to get at the drug trafficking that's happening. But drug trafficking happens all over Central and South America. And when you see a boat that has drugs on it, you don't just bomb it. Maybe you get on the boat and you arrest everyone on it, question them, seize the drugs to make sure there were drugs there, and then you can find more boats by questioning those people and cutting deals with them. And that's how, you know, you get to a supply chain of drugs.

But this president has openly talked about regime change. They're now seizing oil tankers, which has nothing to do with drugs. They're making sure that, you know, we get into a full-fledged war with Venezuela at this point. And we don't want to be dragged into more forever wars at this point as a country.

CORNISH: How is this complicated, though, by the one-time position of Democrats of, you want to support opposition leaders, right, in autocracies? You want to kind of support democracy in places where you can. Isn't this something that I think plenty of people in the party believed in for a time?

SURAMANYAM: We still believe in that. But at the same time, supporting doesn't mean sending bombs in to boats that are leaving that country or declaring a pseudo war on that country. Supporting can mean sanctions. Supporting can mean, you know, public messaging and getting allies to work together on putting pressure on administration. But this is not the kind of support we talk about.

CORNISH: I want to turn to something else you're familiar with at House Oversight, the Epstein files, at least what of it was released. So many redactions. And Todd Blanche of the Justice Department was actually asked to comment on this because there's just so many black squares over everything, frankly.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TODD BLANCHE, DEPUTY ATTORNEY GENERAL: There were a number of photographs that were pulled down after being released on Friday. That's because a judge in New York has ordered us to listen to any victim or victim rights group, if they have any concerns about the material that we're putting up. And so, when we hear concerns, whether it's photographs of women that we do not believe are victims or we didn't have information to show that they were victims, but we learned that there are concerns, of course we're taking that photograph down and we're going to address it.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: Congressman, what's your response to that?

SURAMANYAM: Well, we absolutely want to do what we can to protect the victims. But, you know, I've been working with the rest of the Oversight Committee on releasing documents and making sure victims were protected. And I'll just say that, they said back in March that they had all the documents and that they were redacted and ready to go, and they were on Pam Bondi's desk. And then four months ago we subpoenaed them for the same documents, and they released one batch of files and then released nothing else. I don't think they've been serious about this from the very beginning.

I think, you know, some of the redactions were of Donald Trump. As soon as Donald Trump shows up in a file, they take that down. This investigation was never supposed to be about Donald Trump, and yet this administration continues to make it about him. And more importantly, they are hiding a lot of documents that would be very helpful in our investigation.

I'll give you another one. You know, the DOJ put together a 60-plus count indictment of Jeffrey Epstein, and then gave him a sweetheart deal. We don't have that 60-count indictment and the explanation of it. That would be very helpful. And it's only 150 pages. It's very easy to redact. Yet we don't have basic documents like that. I just wonder why they are doing this and who they are covering up for.

CORNISH: In the meantime, you have, I believe, Democrats releasing photos, right, from the files that they can. And I've noticed there's a lot of people, Larry Summers, Bill Gates, plenty of Bill Clinton. And it feels like you guys are kind of throwing those people under the bus, frankly.

[06:50:03]

Like, why are Democrats kind of comfortable showing those images of people who might be linked to them as a party?

SURAMANYAM: Yes. You know, we're not going around trying to find every picture of every one of these folks and releasing them. They're, you know, the pictures that we release are sort of representative sample of the pictures that we're finding. A lot of the pictures we're finding, you know, we can't release because of protecting the victims or because they're not of any sort of public value.

But in the end, you know, we don't care where this investigation leads. We're going to follow the evidence. We're going to, you know, whatever pictures show up, no matter who they are, whether it's a Democrat or a Republican, you know, we're going to make sure that the public has full transparency in what's going on.

CORNISH: I want to ask you about one other thing we were talking about in the show earlier today, Vivek Ramaswamy and his run in Ohio. It's notable because he has been talking very publicly about, for lack of a better term, kind of racist attacks that he's received or is defending against around Indian Americans and south Asians in the U.S. Can you talk about that voter right now who is watching that play out? Because for a time it did seem they were gravitating towards the Republican Party.

SURAMANYAM: Yes. You know, this administration has folks in it that have stoked a lot of, you know, anti-Indian, anti-Hindu at times, you know, rhetoric. And so, you know, I'm sure he's seeing that.

I think, in the end, it's very difficult. There's no members of Congress that are Republican and Indian American. And that's for a reason. They keep trying to run and they lose in the primaries. And so, you know, I remember when I got sworn in. You know, I posted a picture of myself and my family getting sworn in on the Bhagavad Gita. And then I got a ton of hate comments for posting that, saying that I should go back to where I came from or that I'm not a real American, even though I was born here.

And, you know, I think, you know, we're going to have to continue to fight that on both sides of the aisle, because I don't think that's how all Republicans feel by any means. But certainly when, you know, people do say things like that, we should call it out for what it is.

CORNISH: Is there an opportunity there? Meaning there's lots of groups Democrats struggled with in the last election as Trump sort of expanded his coalition. Do you see people interested in looking towards these communities?

SURAMANYAM: Oh, absolutely. It's not just the Indian American community, or the Hindu American community. It's all sort of communities of color, really. I think, you know, Trump promised a foreign policy where we wouldn't get into more wars or a foreign policy that was more balanced. And now you see him put sanctions on India, for instance. That's hurt him in the Indian American community. You see him, you know, kind of losing voters in all sorts of communities across the spectrum. And so his policies have really turned people away. And now the Democratic Party has to be a good alternative. And so, that's what we need to work on next year. We need to talk about things like affordability, things like corruption, which I think bothers a lot of people in those communities. And, you know, be a good alternative to what they're seeing right now from this administration.

CORNISH: OK, that's Democratic Representative Suramanyam. Thank you so much for talking with us. SURAMANYAM: Thank you.

CORNISH: OK, I'm kicking off this week with something I did not have on my 2025 bingo card. Grammy Award-winning rapper Nicki Minaj making a surprise appearance at that Turning Point USA AmericaFest Conference this weekend.

So, the rap star walks on stage, hand in hand with Erika Kirk, as Minaj's 2011 hit "Super Bass" plays. The rapper, who criticized President Trump during his first term, is pretty much gushing over him now.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICKI MINAJ, GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING RAPPER: I have the utmost respect and admiration for our president. He -- he has -- I don't know if he even knows this, but he's given so many people hope that there's a chance to beat the bad guys and to win and to do it with your head held high and your integrity intact.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK, group chat is back.

I wanted to talk about this for a couple reasons, because we were saying during the break, this isn't a tweet or like a meme. This is her coming out to fireworks, hand in hand with, you know, the person who is the leader of the TP USA movement in Erika Kirk. And we don't know that much about her politics in a lot of ways. I do know, I think it was a few years ago in "Vibe" magazine, she talked about her immigration status, but I don't know her as a political figure.

Do you, Tal?

KOPAN: I certainly don't.

[06:55:00]

And I will definitely say that I am not an entertainment reporter. So, I'm not going to try to get into her head. But -- but, no, I --

CORNISH: Yes. No, I just mean, like, Cardi B interviewed Bernie Sanders, right?

KOPAN: Yes. I mean --

CORNISH: There's some people who are very sort of, like, outward about their politics.

KOPAN: And I mean my understanding is, you know, Nicki Minaj is all about transformations. But I will say, I find it fascinating how, you know, in Trump's first term we really saw pop culture keep him at a distance. You know, athletes refused to go to the White House after winning a championship. Hollywood stars sort of talked about their support of him, claimed they were canceled. They saw, you know, sort of a bit of a shunning. And now we see -- I mean he is part of pop culture. You see athletes fully embracing him. He's going to all these sporting events. And you have Nicki Minaj, (INAUDIBLE) --

CORNISH: Right. And even if he's not welcome, he ends up taking it over, right, like the Kennedy Center.

KOPAN: Sure.

FISCHER: Yes. He wants to insert himself into pop culture because that's how you expand popularity. It's how you expand the future of the party, the vote, all of those things.

Nicki Minaj, it seems to me, like a single issue type of voter. She cared a lot about the bring back the girls movement in Nigeria. That's --

CORNISH: Yes. Let me play a clip of her with that. She was actually speaking at the U.N. about these claims of persecution of Christians in Nigeria, and specifically started talking about the president in the context of that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

NICKI MINAJ, GRAMMY AWARD-WINNING RAPPER: We are not going to be silenced by the bullies anymore, OK? Know that. Hear that. Receive that, bullies. We won't be silenced ever again. We will speak up for Christians wherever they are in this world.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: This was like an applause line because people had just been talking about the U.S. is a Christian nation at the conference.

WOLF: There is something that we don't know going on here because, like you said, she came out very publicly. Trump is somebody who can be, you know, maybe not manipulated, but certainly encouraged to do something on somebody's behalf. We don't know what that is.

CORNISH: Right.

CORNISH: So, she sees some reason to come out and do this.

CORNISH: Yes.

WOLF: You know, is it finding a new group of followers for her music? I doubt it.

CORNISH: Yes. Is it a pardon for someone in her family?

WOLF: Yes. Who knows what it is?

CORNISH: Yes. In the meantime I think people are paying attention, a, because pop culture likes what they would consider a heel turn. But, second of all, I think it's just one of those moments where she had already been beefing with other rappers online. Her fans were already starting to ask a lot of questions. And this kind of adds to it.

FISCHER: Yes, and when's the last time she had a major hit? Like this brings her back into the news cycle, brings her back into the zeitgeist in popularity. This is going to go viral on TikTok. I mean, Nicki Minaj has been in the conversation for a long time. I can't believe "Super Bass" was 15 years ago, Audie. That's insane.

CORNISH: Yes, it was weird reading that number.

FISCHER: 2011.

CORNISH: Yes.

FISCHER: So, this keeps her relevant.

CORNISH: OK, I got to admit, that's what was in my group chat. So, I just turned it into a whole discussion because I'm like, someone help me make sense of this moment.

But I want to hear what is in your group chat, especially ahead of this week, where it can be quite quiet. What are you going to be watching?

FISCHER: The media industry is ablaze right now because "60 Minutes" yanked a segment about immigration. Its top editor basically made the call after that segment was approved by standards. And basically they said that the reason they pulled it was because they didn't have a Trump administration official as part of the segment.

Zooming out, people think that this is evidence of how CBS' corporate parent is pulling the strings to cater favor with Trump ahead of trying to merge with -- or acquire Warner Brothers Discovery, which is the parent to CNN.

I think for people at home, the reason that they should care about this is that "60 Minutes" has been the highest rated news program in the country for 50 consecutive seasons. And part of the reason being, there's a lot of trust that there is editorial independence. And so, any time that starts to get questioned, as it has in the past few months, people are very sensitive.

CORNISH: Yes. And with people on staff themselves raising those questions.

FISCHER: Yes.

CORNISH: Zach, what are you paying attention to?

WOLF: Well, I just want to say, if the -- if the White House can kill a story by saying "no comment," there's going to be a lot less reporting out there. So, that one strikes close to home for us journalists.

But I had bourbon in my group chat because Jim Beam is stopping production at one of their distilleries. And this is -- apparently has to do with the trade war and tariffs and all of that.

CORNISH: Really? WOLF: Yes. Because Canadians aren't buying American whiskey and they've got too much aging. So, they're just -- I dove deep on the bourbon last night reading about it.

CORNISH: OK, click, click, sending to my husband.

FISCHER: Reading.

CORNISH: Yes.

KOPAN: I mean I have little kids. So, pretty much every scrap of mental bandwidth that I have right now is getting into preparing for the holidays. Lack of routines, you know, lack of school, all the sequencing with family and gifts and --

CORNISH: So, this is just a cry for help mostly.

KOPAN: Yes, I'm -- we're -- our group chat is pretty focused on that.

CORNISH: That's fair. I mean, I've got one of mine telling me, like, you know, mommy, I don't think I've been good. I'm not sure if Santa's going to --

FISCHER: Oh, man.

CORNISH: And he said it with such seriousness. And I was like, oh, I'll call him. Like, I don't know what to say. But I like that he had the self-awareness to know.

[07:00:01]

FISCHER: Yes, that's cute. I mean, I would just say, parents out there, "Zootopia Two" crushing it at the box office.

KOPAN: Yes.

FISCHER: That's a good distraction if you need one this week.

CORNISH: Still crushing it at the box.

FISCHER: Still.

CORNISH: That is crazy. Has it crossed the billion mark or --

FISCHER: It has crossed the billion mark.

CORNISH: OK.

FISCHER: And that's largely thanks to China. But that's a conversation for another time.

CORNISH: OK. You guys, thanks so much for waking up with me. Thanks for being with us today. I'm Audie Cornish. And the headlines are going to be next.