Return to Transcripts main page

Erin Burnett Outfront

House Dodges Shutdown After GOP Chaos That Began With Musk; Deadly Christmas Attack; Musk Supports Far-Right Group. Aired 7-8p ET

Aired December 20, 2024 - 19:00   ET

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

[19:00:37]

SARA SIDNER, CNN HOST: OUTFRONT next:

Breaking news, down to the wire. The House voting to avoid a shutdown just hours before the deadline. The Senate about to vote as the next battle over spending already brewing.

And two dead and at least 68 people injured after a driver slammed a car into a crowded Christmas market. CNN is live on the scene.

Plus, Elon Musk tweets his support for a German group linked to neo- Nazi rhetoric.

This as a major Tesla shareholder has a message for Musk: Stop trying to run the country and go back to running your company. He's my guest.

Let's go OUTFRONT.

(MUSIC)

SIDNER: Good evening to you. I'm Sara Sidner, in for Erin Burnett.

OUTFRONT tonight, breaking news, the House votes to avert a shutdown just moments ago. The house voting to pass a last minute spending bill just a few hours before a government shutdown would have gone into effect. Now it's the Senate's turn.

It comes after two days of sheer chaos, spurred on by president-elect and his unelected buddy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Elon Musk, an unelected billionaire.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Elon Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Elon Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: The unelected Elon Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Elon Musk and his sidekick Donald Trump.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: It was Elon Musk who first upended this process, furiously tweeting his opposition to the spending bill after a bipartisan deal was in place, the result of months of negotiations between both parties. Yes, those are his tweets coming at you like that.

Musk decided he wasn't happy with it, and Trump joined in. Musk now appears content after Democrats and Republicans voted 366 to 34 to pass this new bill.

Musk posting on social media tonight his congratulations to House Speaker Mike Johnson, saying, quote: The speaker did a good job here given the circumstances. It went from a bill that weighed pounds to a bill that weighed ounces.

But one crucial thing is missing from those ounces. One thing President-elect Trump wanted, to suspend the debt ceiling.

Manu Raju is OUTFRONT on Capitol Hill.

Manu, what is the latest you're hearing out there in this chaos? And I'm sure everyone is exhausted.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, a big sigh of relief after two days of hectic, frantic and very tense negotiations in the aftermath of both Musk and Donald Trump engaging very late and Trump making that late demand to not only to scuttle this bipartisan deal, but to add the increase of a national debt limit, a politically fraught issue that typically takes months to resolve to just get that done in a couple of days simply because he did not want to deal with it while he is president in his term.

Democrats did not want to give in on that issue because they see that as leverage to fight the Trump agenda in the next term. The end result was that Donald Trump did not get what he wanted. He had to set it aside amid bipartisan opposition, including from some conservative Republicans. And in talking to Republicans today, it was clear that a lot of them believed that Trump mishandled this issue.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. DAN CRENSHAW (R-TX): I will eat sandwiches of budget bills and debt ceiling increases so that Trump has a great runway. But you got to plan ahead to do that.

RAJU: How much did that complicate things to wait until Wednesday to say that he needs this now?

CRENSHAW: Well, you're seeing it play out right now.

RAJU: Just the way that he went after you and the fact that you defied him. What does that say about his power or limits of power here?

REP. CHIP ROY (R-TX): Yeah, it's not about -- there was no defiance. We just had a disagreement on the bill the other night, and that's fine. You can have disagreement. I represent constituents in Article One in Congress. I think we ended up in the right result in the back and forth again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And that last comment coming from Congressman Chip Roy, who actually was a subject of Donald Trump going after him rather directly and personally yesterday on social media. But Roy defied Donald Trump. He voted against Trump's supported plan yesterday. He even voted against this current plan that just passed the House.

And ultimately, they are punting on that very complicated issue of the debt ceiling for the next term.

Sara, this just means that in the first 100 days, Donald Trump will have his work cut out for him -- how to avoid another government shutdown by mid-March, and then contend with raising the national debt limit. Those are big problems. Even a single party rule is poised to come to Washington.

SIDNER: We will see what happens. Manu Raju there for the roller coaster of a ride. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.

RAJU: Thank you.

SIDNER: All right. OUTFRONT now, Democratic Congressman Eric Swalwell.

All right. So, you -- you voted for this bill. Do you think it was better than the original?

REP. ERIC SWALWELL (D-CA): I did. No, but my prerogative was to make sure that the hard working employee who serves our veterans or keeps our airports safe, you know, with the TSA, or is monitoring air traffic as an air traffic controller that they get paid for the work that they do. This wasn't perfect.

This was completely unnecessary, Sara. And what concerns me is that House Republicans, you know, they have like a 5 or 6 seat margin right now. And they allowed Musk to completely own them. What's going to happen when their margins narrow in two weeks and they're not going to be able to really lose anyone on their side?

And so I just worry that we're descending into chaos here and whatever they thought the message was from this past election, this isn't it. People wanted lower costs, wanted more security at the border, lower crime for us to be strong in the world. And this -- this wasn't it. To put people in so much fear about their own future, I just worry about where we go from here.

SIDNER: You said that you didn't think this was better than the bipartisan bill that had been hashed out for many, many weeks. But this was plan C.

Was there any calculation on your part or other Democrats that you've been talking to that you would get blamed for a shutdown if you didn't vote for this one?

SWALWELL: Well, again, it was more about the TSA security officer that two weeks ago pulled me aside as he was helping me, as I was going through security, and he said, hey, I saw you coming through. And my wife told me to ask you, are we going to be okay? So just knowing that people are counting on us to get this right and its not perfect by any means, but that person not getting paid and thousands others not getting paid, that's also not right.

And so for Democrats, I think the message we have to convey is Republicans. They're going to fight for the rich. We're for the rest.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you something, because there is something missing from this bill that Donald Trump had put out there on social media that he wanted. Speaker Johnson said tonight that Trump is actually happy with the outcome of plan -- what has turned into plan C, but just yesterday, Trump tweeted a primary challenge against any house Republican who voted for a bill that did not include a debt limit increase.

So when you look at this, do you think this is going to impact Johnsons speakership? And what do you make of that argument?

SWALWELL: I don't. I mean, Donald Trump has been a perennial loser in Congress. Remember, he was out there during the Senate majority leader race, and his preference was for Rick Scott to win. And Rick Scott got trounced. And in the past, he's done the same thing going after members.

And so this is just bluster. And so if my colleagues recognize that you can ride this out, you don't have to shrink. You can stand tall and assert your values and stand up for your constituents. We're going to be fine.

But I told some of my Republican colleagues yesterday who were just like, absolutely banging their head against the wall when the Musk tweets started coming. I told them, if you shrink now, he is going -- Musk is going to own you for the next two years. So you have to stand up against him, against a bully and show that you're going to defend your constituents and their priorities, and you're not going to let him tell you what to do.

And the more they do that against Trump, I think the more Trump shrinks rather than them shrinking and hurting their constituents.

SIDNER: Well, certainly the bill shrank quite a bit in all of this.

Congressman Swalwell, thank you so much and congrats on getting a bill through.

SWALWELL: My pleasure.

SIDNER: All right.

SWALWELL: Yeah.

SIDNER: Former Congressman Mondaire Jones and Adam Kinzinger are both with me, as is former Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty.

I'm going to start with you, Congressman Kinzinger.

Why does this always seem to come down to the last minute when it comes to trying to pass this bill? It is the thing that Congress is supposed to do to keep the government running for the benefit of the people.

ADAM KINZINGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yeah. It's funny. You know, when I was in, I always called this Christmas roulette because I'm like, we always go right up to Christmas. And then it's like some must-pass bill.

And the reason is very simple, because we don't know how to talk to each other anymore, and we don't know how to compromise. And spending is like the ultimate thing that you need to compromise on, right? Like, if we want to spend 900 billion on DOD, the Democrats want to spend $800 billion. Then you try to find somewhere in between so you can get a bill passed.

And that literally is the really the only job of Congress is to make sure that you can get this spending bill done, what you saw. And I know you talked about how this bill is a lot smaller than the big bill.

[19:10:02]

Here's the reality of it: they're going to have to pass the big bill, but now they're going to have to do it, like whenever the CR expires, because all they passed today was say, hey, everything that we spent money on, we're just going to keep doing that because we couldn't do our job.

And if you're the Department of Defense, who I have an affection for, by the way, and you want to cancel a program means all this talk on DOGE about inefficiencies in the DOD, or you want to create a new program. We're always talking about how Iran and China, Iran and China have, you know, started to catch up to us. You can't do that under a car because we don't give you the budget authority to do that.

So this is a terrible way to govern -- always has been. And while we get to celebrate Christmas together now, we did no good for the American people.

SIDNER: All right. Congressman Jones, some members of your party were quick this week to call Musk "President Musk". Here's just a sampling.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Musk. UNIDENTIFIED MALE: President Musk.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: President Musk.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: I mean, there is a clear, clear line here.

MONDAIRE JONES (D-NY), FORMER U.S. REPRESENTATIVE: You got -- you got to add the word "elect". You know, he's not the president. Musk is not really President Musk yet. In a few weeks, he will be.

It's the truth. Donald Trump is not in charge here. He is following the lead of his biggest donor, the world's richest man. And it happens to be, sadly, someone who does not understand how government works. You can you can see in real time President-elect Elon Musk learning how government works, how Congress works, certainly.

In fact, he says things about bills that are not true and then has to correct himself. It's extraordinary. But this is the kind of dysfunction and chaos that has not just defined the past two years under the Republican majority in Congress, but it's only going to get worse because now Elon Musk is running the show.

SIDNER: Do you think this is just what is more chaos to come in 2025? Even though the House and the Senate will be Republican-led?

JONES: Absolutely. I mean, basically, you have the people who are going to be exerting influence formally doing so right now. They're in the driver's seat right now, and they still can't get their act together.

And I would just say this was a stunning defeat for Donald Trump because he insisted that something be done about the debt ceiling and it is nowhere to be found. That kind of resolution in this, in this document.

SIDNER: He specifically wanted it done under President Biden, so he could be --

JONES: And I'll just say one more thing. You know, in Congress, most of what you have is your word, okay? There was a bipartisan agreement that was struck a few days ago.

So, now, what is Hakeem Jeffries to think of this situation? Should he be negotiating, moving forward with Elon Musk rather than a guy who's going to continue to be in nominally anyway, the speaker of the House? Because otherwise, he can expect that through a tweet, it's just going to be blown up whatever agreement is struck with Mike Johnson.

SIDNER: All right. We will see. Let's see.

Governor Pawlenty, the image of Musk as the one running the show, also being reinforced tonight on social media in ways Trump will likely not enjoy. This is A.I. generated images of Musk as a puppeteer, pulling Trump's strings, and Democratic Congressman Mark Pocan, one of Musk as king there, and Trump in the court jester outfit there.

How long before all of this gets under Donald Trumps skin? And is that the actual point that Democrats are trying to make that so?

TIM PAWLENTY (R), FORMER MINNESOTA GOVERNOR: I think that is the point that the Democrats are trying to make, but a few points of observation back, Sara. One, if you took a poll between the United States Congress and Elon Musk, I would venture to say, go out on a limb here, Elon Musk would be exponentially more popular than the entire Congress and either party within the Congress as well.

And then beyond that, what you haven't seen in these last days, even with all this drama, is any daylight between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. So, the premise that there's some friction, there's a split, you know, you didn't see Donald Trump, you know, contradict anything that Elon Musk said or vice versa. So they are, at this point shoulder to shoulder.

And for Donald Trump, whether you like him or love him or something else, Elon Musk is a force multiplier at present, no doubt about it. At some point in the future, he may get sick of Elon getting too much attention, but that isn't today.

SIDNER: All right. Congressman Kinzinger, you were one of the people that referred to Musk as President Musk. Musk tonight on social media said this in part: The political and legacy media puppets all got their instructions yesterday and are now parroting the same message to drive a wedge between Donald Trump and me. They will fail.

Does he know something that other people don't?

KINZINGER: No. Look, he's obviously worried, I think. I mean, look, does this actually end up creating a wedge between Trump and Musk, I don't know.

[19:15:02]

You know, they both really need each other. Musk got him elected with his spending. You know, Donald Trump loves people with money. And so I don't know. But obviously I think there would be some concern from Elon's perspective.

But, you know, they always do. He always does this where it's like the legacy media, the old media, and he acts like Twitter is some new thing. Twitter is a like a Petri dish of lies and misinformation and Russian propaganda, which Elon Musk himself spews a lot of.

So he loves -- it hasn't been the media saying this. I've not seen -- I've not seen CNN, for instance, refer to President Musk or Vice President Trump. It's the people that come on the media that do that.

And so, look, they continue to try to alienate it like Twitter is something. If Twitter ends up becoming our number one way of getting information, then were in trouble because its silos. And frankly, Vladimir Putin has his hand all over what you read there. SIDNER: You must have been reading my mind because speaking to that,

this question to Governor Pawlenty, Musk pushed repeatedly false claims online. This is just a few of them, and we'll lay them out for you.

He said that the initial bill had a 40 percent pay hike for lawmakers. Totally false. It was less than 4 percent. Also claimed, quote, we're funding bio weapon labs in this bill. Again, not true.

And Musk retweeted a false claim that the bill included $3 billion for a new NFL stadium in D.C. -- again, false. It only transferred control of RFK stadium to the D.C. government.

All are still online, even though they've been repeatedly pointed out as being false by many different outlets.

So was Musk gullible enough to fall for these false claims, or is this purposeful? Because he knows a lot of people are not going to go check up on him, especially those who follow and believe in him.

PAWLENTY: You know, it's not clear whether he knew or didn't know whether they were false. I would want to believe. I hope, anyhow, that he didn't know. But the fact of the matter is, if you're going to be in the public arena and have this much, even indirect or informal influence, you got to be responsible and accountable for your words and try your very best to be accurate and ethical in that regard.

So what that stream of events you just described is disappointing, but I don't want to lose a bigger sight of something else. And that is our country, our Congress, our federal government is in big trouble on all kinds of fronts.

And as Elon Musk, a little eccentric -- yes. Is he brilliant? Yes. Is he going to come in and say and do some things that some people are going to be unsettled by? Yes.

But frankly, very bluntly, our federal government needs shock value. It is out of control. We are headed towards a very difficult set of circumstances for a whole bunch of reasons, one of which is just the deficit and the debt. We're not even going to be able to fund ourselves in the not too distant future unless somebody significantly and substantially takes on this challenge.

And again, it's imperfect. But if you just go with the usual folks, you're going to get the usual results. And now you have an unusual leader trying to do unusual things.

SIDNER: All right. Thank you to you all for staying here on this Friday night to get us through this. Appreciate it.

OUTFRONT next: we've got some more breaking news for you. At least two dead and nearly 70 people injured after officials say a Saudi-born driver plowed into a Christmas market. CNN is live on the scene, and Elon Musk, on the heels of the chaos he created on Capitol Hill, is now endorsing a far right political party in Germany with links to neo-Nazis. What is going on? Plus, inside the alleged CEO killer's jail in New York. Attorneys and

judges have described horrific conditions, including worm-infested food and toilets that don't flush. Those stories ahead.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:23:06]

SIDNER: Breaking news terror at a Christmas market. A driver plows a car into a crowded German market filled with people, killing two, including a toddler, and injuring dozens more.

Now, German officials have identified that man, saying he is a Saudi- born doctor with residency in Germany. It happened in the city of Magdeburg. Police are right now investigating the incident as a terrorist attack.

I want to warn you, this is a disturbing content. This is the moment right after the driver smashed through a massive crowd. You can see dozens of people lying on the streets there injured.

I want to go straight to Fred Pleitgen, who is at the scene right now. Fred, what are you seeing? And what more are you learning? I know that you have arrived on the scene. You've been reporting on this since it happened.

FREDERIK PLEITGEN, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there. Sarah. Yeah, it is still very much a mass casualty event that the authorities here in Magdeburg are dealing with. In fact, I'm going to get right out of your way. And you can see that there's still a lot of fire trucks, a lot of ambulances that are here on the scene with the emergency medical personnel working here. This is a gigantic event.

And one of the things that the authorities here tell us is that the hospitals in the Magdeburg area, it's actually a very big city. They're completely overwhelmed with all of this and had to fly some of the casualties to other places for increased treatment.

The latest that we're hearing is that this incident started, the authorities say, at around 7:00 p.m. local time, when the driver plowed into the Christmas market. And if you look from here, the Christmas market is actually a little bit over that way. That fencing over there is the Christmas market. And he plowed through there.

Now there are some barriers that I've seen to the Christmas market, so it's unclear how the car made it in there. But you just showed that video, that devastating video of the car plowing through the Christmas market with people trying to jump out of the way. It would have been very difficult for them to do that. It's a very compact area.

And of course, 7:00 p.m. on a Friday night is exactly the time when most people would go to that Christmas market, families, people coming off work the last Friday before Christmas.

[19:25:07] So the authorities are saying the place was packed. It was almost impossible for people to get out of the way. And that's one of the reasons why so many people have been so badly injured. The governor of the state that Magdeburg is in has said that he fears that the death toll could continue to rise, Sara.

SIDNER: Those pictures are extremely disturbing. The driver, as we understand it, was immediately arrested after what authorities call a terrorist attack. Anything more about the motive here?

PLEITGEN: Yeah, it's very -- it's very difficult to ascertain as far as motives are concerned. It was quite interesting because top level German politicians have come out and said right now they simply don't know. It appears as though they have been able to question the suspect. He was obviously immediately arrested. He was driving a black BMW, which some say appears to be a rental car.

But at this point in time, the only thing they know is that he is from Saudi Arabia. That he's been in Germany since 2006. He seems to be well situated here. He's a doctor at a local hospital.

Unclear what exactly the motivations are at this point, but of course, it's something that the authorities are going to try and find out and urgently try and find out over the next couple of hours, the next couple of days -- Sara.

SIDNER: One thing you can see from some of the videos is that it didn't appear that he ever slammed on the brakes. He just plowed through the crowd. Devastating.

Fred Pleitgen, thank you so much. Live for us in Germany. I appreciate you.

I want to go now to Kayla Tausche, who is at the White House for us.

Kayla, the White House closely watching this situation. What can you tell us?

KAYLA TAUSCHE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, the White House has been closely monitoring the situation throughout the day, and U.S. officials are in touch with their German counterparts to try to assist in the situation in this early stage investigation that is now ongoing by the German authorities. A spokesperson for the National Security Council telling CNN, our condolences go out to the victims and their families, and our thoughts are with the German people during this difficult time.

You could expect that the U.S. would be likely to share any intelligence that it has with its German counterparts to assist in this investigation. The intelligence relationship between the U.S. and its European counterparts is a very well-trod one. You may remember just a few months ago, U.S. intelligence agencies provided Austrian officials with intelligence that thwarted a terrorist attack in Vienna that would have taken place at a Taylor Swift concert.

So, certainly, if the U.S. is in possession of any relevant information, we would expect them to be able to share that readily. President Biden, for his part, has a very close relationship with the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. Although he is, he is, of course, in a -- in a challenging position in his own government in Germany.

But as for President Biden's own views of this situation, it remains unclear whether President Biden himself has been briefed on the situation. But we do know that the U.S. stands ready to assist in the German investigation -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Kayla Tausche, thank you so much, live for us from the White House.

OUTFRONT now, Rob D'Amico, a former FBI supervisory special agent.

Thank you so much, Rob, for coming on this Friday evening.

Authorities say the suspected driver is a doctor from Saudi Arabia who has permanent residency and works in the area where the attack took place or around where the attack took place. He's been living in Germany, according to our Fred Pleitgen, since at least 2006. And video shows he never slowed down when he smashed into people in the market.

Would you be investigating this as a terror attack?

ROB D'AMICO, FORMER FBI SUPERVISORY SPECIAL AGENT: Oh, absolutely. And the groups have used this before. This is not the first time that a vehicle into a large crowd has been used as a terrorist attack. ISIS put this out a while ago. So did al Qaeda in the peninsula.

So it's one of those that its really hard to get in front of because if it's just one person, this doctor obviously probably got radicalized online and came up with this idea and how -- how many other people did he share it with? It might have been known. It might have been just a few, but they're really hard to counter against.

But since it's been done before, you would think that their precautions would have been set.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you that because the German authorities said earlier this week they foiled a potential terror attack on another Christmas market in Bavaria. According to a report, sources said the suspect had disseminated posts on social media glorifying the Islamic State and photographed the Christmas market in Augsburg. He allegedly talked about wanting to drive a car through the market. This is all, according to Weld, a sister publication of "Politico".

So do you see any connections there? You just mentioned that, you know, this was sort of a message put out by ISIS to try and al Qaeda to try and get people to perpetrate these attacks.

D'AMICO: I do. I think if it went out, it might not have been planned together. They might have been on the same chat group. And the one person who was planning it that got thwarted might have been talking about it, and it gave an idea to this one, so they might not have of -- you know, aligned the events. [19:30:03]

But I'm surprised that with that being thwarted in Germany, that a larger announcement didn't go out for any of these Christmas markets to take precautions because it's something they talked about.

I think back here in the U.S., someone might not have planned something, but is seeing this has ideas of violence for extremism and could do it here just based on the copycat type of thing that's put it in his mind -- how easy something like this is to do.

SIDNER: Yeah, I mean, it looks like if these messages were going out that these Christmas markets unfortunately, may need to really beef up their security and the ability for a car to drive through there without putting up some other type of blockade.

Rob D'Amico, thank you so much. I appreciate your expertise on this.

All right. OUTFRONT next, a major Tesla investor who holds $105 million in stock, slamming Elon Musk for not doing his day job and spending his time trying to run the country through X.

Plus, Trump insisting that Congress should get rid of the debt ceiling. And tonight he has some Democrats on board.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:35:35]

SIDNER: Tonight, Elon Musk, on the heels of helping cause chaos in Congress that almost led to a government shutdown, he is now riling some German lawmakers by endorsing Germany's far right political party in the upcoming election. Posting on X only the AFD can save Germany.

The German government has deemed AFD an extremist group. One of its regional leaders has been convicted of using Nazi rhetoric in Germany. The party takes a hard line on immigration. They are anti-immigration.

It comes as the U.S. federal government just narrowly avoided a shutdown. It was Musk who began the panic and helped blow up a bipartisan agreement that was about to pass. And while he's running the government, he's being criticized for neglecting his day job as Tesla CEO. One of those critics is my next guest, Ross Gerber, President and CEO of Gerber Kawasaki and a long time major Tesla investor.

Ross, thank you so much for joining us. First, I want to get your reaction to that Musk endorsement that I just mentioned, Musk voicing support for Germany's AFD party, which has ties to neo-Nazi rhetoric.

The AFD party, of course, tweeting out it's thrilled by this endorsement. What do you make of this?

ROSS GERBER, TESLA INVESTOR: You know, my dad was in Germany in 1961 when the Berlin wall went up. And, you know, my family fought in World War Two, and I'm of Jewish descent, and I find it to be disgusting. To be honest, there's really no reason for it. And I don't understand how this needs to be part of his rhetoric when his job, in my perspective, is being CEO of Tesla.

SIDNER: You know, we mentioned that you are a major longtime Tesla investor. You hold more than $100 million in Tesla stock. You drive a cybertruck.

But you're here raising the alarm that Musk isn't really running his company. Based on what you know as an insider, how much focus is he putting on running the country instead?

Well, it's his main focus right now. I mean, most people have said he hasn't left Mar-a-Lago since the election, so we know what he's focused on and where he's putting his energy. And unfortunately, it's not Tesla. It's just a really critical time in the company.

You know, he hires very competent people and gives them a lot of responsibility, which is his style. But this is just a time where Tesla really can't make a mistake. And there have critical things they need to solve, like full self-driving, new vehicle launches and such, going into next year. And you know, if they, you know, don't succeed at this, this is going to be maybe a potentially really difficult time.

So, so I would really love the CEO with a $100 billion pay package to be focused on the company. He's supposed to be running.

SIDNER: Do you think he's qualified to be playing this so far outsized role in government relations?

GERBER: Well, is Trump qualified? I mean, come on. So most of the people in government, you know, are not that qualified. And Elon is a very, very competent person. And he's an excellent engineer and business person.

And so I actually don't have any issues with him trying to improve the United States government from that perspective. But as a Tesla shareholder, it doesn't serve my interests per se as a shareholder.

SIDNER: The American people seem to trust that Trump is qualified at this point. They put him back in office.

Is there -- you know, from what you're saying here, is there a point at which you start looking at whether or not you want to be a major investor or take your money out from Tesla?

GERBER: Well, I want to make it clear. I care about climate. I invested in Tesla, not Elon Musk. I invested in Tesla because its solution to climate, which is the biggest issue that humans face in my mind, over the next decade or more.

And Tesla is the best solution for climate in many, many areas. I love the vehicles. They're best vehicles on the road. They're making a huge impact positively for climate, although autonomy, I think is really important for driver safety and something that I'm very bullish on as well. In the end, I'm going to be an investor in Tesla because its one of the most innovative and important companies in the world.

Now, there's a lot of CEOs I don't personally like, but I still invest in their companies.

SIDNER: I do want to ask you sort of go back to AFD, what disturbs you the most about Musk jumping in here? Some, you know, German legislators feel like he's meddling. The AFD very happy about this. But what is your biggest concern and what do you think his end game is?

GERBER: Well, once again, as a human being, my concern is I think this right wing move or pushing people right is actually bad for the world. But as a Tesla shareholder, I look at it as like, we have a factory in Germany and were supposed to be selling cars in Europe.

[19:40:04]

And we've seen the numbers in Europe are going down. Tesla shares are going down and supporting far right extremism is exactly how you get, you know, Europe not to buy Tesla.

So, you know, once again, a lot of his personal goals are diametrically opposed to what's best for Tesla and its shareholders. And that's really why I'm here, because it's very frustrating to me as a shareholder, as an activist shareholder, that the CEO of my company is, you know, really pushing, you know, a very divisive set of ideologies.

SIDNER: Ross Gerber, I do thank you for your time and coming on, and giving us the scoop from your perspective. I appreciate it.

GERBER: Yeah. Thanks for having me.

SIDNER: All right. OUTFRONT next, what's the one issue President Trump and Senator Elizabeth Warren agree on? We will explain.

And Luigi Mangione behind bars where conditions have been called, quote, barbaric and a jail that's also been home to R. Kelly and to Ghislaine Maxwell, among many others.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:45:26]

SIDNER: Breaking news as Congress avoids a shutdown just before the deadline, one thing that's not in tonight's bill any mention of killing the debt ceiling. That was the demand from President-elect Donald Trump, who wants to outright eliminate the debt ceiling, or at least suspend it until after his presidency.

OUTFRONT now, Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

Thank you for being here on Friday night.

Austan, do you agree with Trump that Congress should eliminate the debt ceiling for good?

AUSTAN GOOLSBEE, PRESIDENT, FEDERAL RESERVE BANK OF CHICAGO: Well, once you once you move over to the Fed, you kind of out of the fiscal policy and fights about debt business. Before I was ever at the Fed, I noted the United States is one of the only countries in the world that has a debt ceiling of that form.

Most countries -- the debt ceiling is determined by the market. So it is a kind of a strange setup that we have.

SIDNER: What is it supposed to do? Is it just a cudgel for Republicans and Democrats to hit, you know, each other over the head with? Or is there a real purpose for the debt ceiling in your estimation?

GOOLSBEE: Well, I don't -- I don't -- I don't know the whole financial legislative history of where it came from. Why -- why it's as unusual as it is. The Fed, as you know, is -- has got a law that tells us what we're supposed to do: maximize employment, stabilize prices.

And so when we see fights about taxes, about spending, about fiscal policy and government actions, like the one that that we've seen playing out over a couple of days, we don't weigh in on who's right or who's wrong. We just try to evaluate is that going to affect prices? Is that going to affect employment? If so, we've got to think through the scenarios. If not, we -- we just take it, as I say, the Midwest motto is there's no bad weather, there's only bad clothing. You tell us the conditions and then we pick the right jacket. And that's kind of how we've tried to approach these shutdowns.

SIDNER: Here's a fun fact: 17 Senate Democrats just reintroduced legislation to do what Donald Trump wants his Republican colleagues to do, and the Democrats to end the debt ceiling, which this is something Democrats have been pushing for years.

Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELIZABETH WARREN (D-MA): I want to see us get rid of the debt ceiling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's time to abolish the debt ceiling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We do not need to have this debt ceiling.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Abolish the debt ceiling.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I think that we have to get rid of the debt ceiling issue.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SIDNER: So you just mentioned, you know, your job is sort of to try to make sure the economy is going along as it should. What would it mean for the economy if the debt ceiling were actually abolished? GOOLSBEE: I don't think in the short run it means much. The -- there's a political dance that you kind of talked about whenever they get close to the debt ceiling. But the thing to remember is the debt ceiling is a after the fact, the thing that they that they argue about and vote on is the budget. The debt ceiling is after you've incurred the bills and said that you're going to spend the money, will you actually pay the bill? That's kind of what the debt ceiling comes to.

I think everybody can agree. You do not want to play games with defaulting on the U.S. debt. That would put it straight back into the world of the Fed, of financial crises. If there was some threat to the full faith and credit of the U.S. treasury bonds. But if they're going to fight about the budget, all power to them. You know that that's the -- that's the purview of Congress and the president, and they're going to have to figure out what the what the priorities are going forward.

SIDNER: It is highly possible, likely, that the debt ceiling fight will end up coming up again in March. You know, when the current bill expires. So I'm curious. The chaos in Congress, how much does that affect markets and affect you and your concern for the country?

GOOLSBEE: Well, you've seen in the past that fights about government shutdowns and fights about debt ceiling and things like that can definitely have a pretty serious impact on consumer confidence in a short period of time when the government shuts down, those have been some of the largest drops in consumer confidence on record.

[19:50:05]

You know, bigger than 9/11, bigger than some -- some other major economic events. If that affects peoples behavior, then over at the Fed where like I say, the law tells us we got to maximize employment, stabilize prices. If you start to see consumer spending dropping because people are nervous, we got to take that into account. We got to think through those scenarios.

And likewise, the financial aspect of government shutdowns, if they're long and extended that they could affect the overall economy or short run fights about the debt ceiling, where there's going to be some question about can -- can we make payments? Then we got to think about that, too. I mean, these are just the realities that we have to think about without judgment.

Like I say, Congress can choose whatever tax policy, debt policy spending that they want. That's not the Feds business, but the Fed business to just try to keep -- keep the economy going.

SIDNER: All right. Austan Goolsbee, thank you so much for hanging out with us on this Friday. Appreciate your time.

GOOLSBEE: Yeah, it's great to see you, Sara.

All right. OUTFRONT next, the alleged CEO killer in one of the most brutal jails in the country. Also in that jail, Sean "Diddy" Combs and Sam Bankman-Fried.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[19:56:06]

SIDNER: Tonight, accused CEO killer Luigi Mangione is expected to be arraigned on state murder and terrorism charges as soon as Monday. That's according to the Manhattan D.A.'s office. It comes as Mangione right now is locked away in one of the worst jails in the country, known for housing prisoners, including singers Sean "Diddy" Combs, R. Kelly, Ja Rule, as well as Ghislaine Maxwell.

The Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, well known for it's horrific conditions, attorneys and judges describing rampant violence, worm and maggot infested food, dirty cells and power outages.

Kara Scannell is OUTFRONT with a look inside.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's one of the most dangerous federal jails in the country, and the current home of suspected shooter Luigi Mangione, who is facing a murder charge for allegedly gunning down the UnitedHealthcare CEO on the streets of Manhattan.

Inmate number 52503-511. Mangione is housed in a facility described by one judge as having dangerous, barbaric conditions and an environment of lawlessness.

ELIE HONIG, FORMER SDNY ATTORNEY: All prisons are miserable places to be, but boy, the MDC is maybe the most miserable of all the federal facilities that I've been in. It is dark, it is overcrowded. It's loud. It's too hot in the summer. It's too cold in the winter.

SCANNELL: Violence, contraband and drugs plagued the facility on the edge of Brooklyn that has housed some of the highest profile defendants in the federal system.

SAM BANKMAN-FRIED, FORMER CEO, FTX: I feel really, really bad and regretful.

SCANNELL: Among them, crypto king Sam Bankman-Fried, embattled music mogul Sean "Diddy" Combs and Jeffrey Epstein's former girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell.

Mangione will likely be isolated given his notoriety. A spokesman for MDC Brooklyn tells CNN for privacy, safety and security reasons, we do not comment on the conditions of confinement for any incarcerated individuals, including housing assignments.

More than 1,100 people, male and female, are currently housed in MDC's notorious cells and dorm style barracks.

HONIG: It's bad enough that various federal judges have actually given reduced sentences or given defendants bail because of the conditions inside the MDC. SCANNELL: In 2019, during a polar vortex, over 1,600 inmates were

locked in their cells, some with frigid temperatures, inadequate blankets and toilets that wouldn't flush, according to a lawsuit -- resulting in a $10 million settlement with inmates.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: We determined that heating issues had been a long standing problem at the jail.

SCANNELL: In August of this year, the director of the Bureau of Prisons created an urgent action team to support the warden there and fill staffing shortages.

COLETTE S. PETERS, BUREAU OF PRISONS DIRECTOR: They are certainly riveted with a staffing crisis, which I think is a major driver of some of the issues that are bubbling up out of that institution.

SCANNELL: But in September, the DOJ announced five inmates were charged in two separate murders of other inmates. A sixth was charged with attempted murder for allegedly stabbing another inmate 44 times with a makeshift weapon. Another inmate was sent to the hospital with an ice pick stuck in his back.

A multi-agency sweep of the facility in October found a number of electronic devices, drugs and associated paraphernalia, and homemade weapons.

And illegal cell phones are common. Federal prosecutors accused alleged gang members of taking photos from inside their cells, posing and showing off their tattoos.

Inmates are not the only criminal offenders. In June, a corrections officer at the jail was sentenced for accepting more than $20,000 in bribes to smuggle drugs, cigarettes and cell phones to inmates, according to the Department of Justice.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

SCANNELL (on camera): It's unclear how long Mangione will stay at the MDC. He could be back in court as soon as Monday for an arraignment on those state murder charges -- Sara.

SIDNER: All right. Our Kara Scannell, thank you to her.

And breaking news, Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer just saying he's confident the Senate will follow the house tonight and vote to avoid a government shutdown. Schumer saying Democrats are working very hard to pass it as soon as possible. The vote could come at any moment.

Schumer also saying he's glad Republican leaders were able to tell Elon Musk, who opposed the initial bipartisan spending deal, that he was wrong.

And thank you for joining us.

"AC360" starts now.