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Inside Politics
Trump Team Pushes Back on Russia Hacking Allegations; Secretary of State Candidate Has Close Ties With Putin; A Glimpse Into Trump's Governing Style; Repealing Obamacare First on GOP Agenda. Aired 8-9a ET
Aired December 11, 2016 - 08:00 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
[08:00:13] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR (voice-over): The election may be over, but the Obama White House and key Senate Republicans vow to pursue the truth about Russian hacking.
SEN. LINDSEY GRAHAM (R), SOUTH CAROLINA: What Russia is trying to do, in my view, is to basically taint the whole democratic process.
KING: President-elect Trump says he can't wait to get started.
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT: We will build the wall, we will. There's going to be doors, big beautiful doors.
KING: But new Trump tweet storms against Boeing and the union leader offer a new twist to the term bully pulpit.
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He didn't tell the truth. He inflated the numbers, and I called him out on it.
KING: Plus, Republicans plan to quickly use their new power.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY), SENATE MAJORITY LEADER: Plus, Obamacare repeal resolution will be the first item up in the New Year.
KING: INSIDE POLITICS, the biggest stories sourced by the best reporters, now.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KING: Welcome to INSIDE POLITICS. I'm John King. Thanks for sharing your Sunday morning.
A lot to talk about, including some mixed signals from the Trump transition and this take from Vice President Joe Biden on why Hillary Clinton lost.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOSEPH BIDEN, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: When a guy talks about grabbing a woman's private parts, when a guy says some of the incredibly outrageous things that were said, it sucks up all the oxygen in the air. (END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: We'll get to that in a bit, but begin with a fascinating question more fit for a spy novel than a presidential transition. Why is President-elect Trump so quick to defend Vladimir Putin, even if it means trashing the work of America's intelligence agencies?
It's a question and an issue that now threatens to shadow the start of the Trump presidency. A new secret CIA assessment says there's no doubt Russia used cyber attacks to meddle in our presidential election and the CIA now concludes the Kremlin's specific goal was to help Trump by hurting Hillary Clinton.
President Obama is now ordering all U.S. intelligence agencies to compare notes, and to produce a comprehensive report before he leaves office on the scope and intent of the Russian meddling.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
LISA MONACO, WHITE HOUSE HOMELAND SECURITY ADVISOR: We may be in -- crossed into a new threshold, and it is incumbent upon us to take stock of that, to review, to conduct some after action, to understand what this means, what has happened, and to impart those lessons learned.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: And if team Trump thinks they can just wave that off as one last partisan act by the outgoing Democratic president, there's this problem. Key Senate Republicans are promising a full investigation, too, and now say among their questions is this, why does the president-elect keep denying what he's being told in his own intelligence briefings, that the case against Russia is overwhelming?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: I think they are one of the most destabilizing influences on the world stage. I think they did interfere with our elections, and I want Putin personally to pay a price.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: With us to share their reporting and insights this Sunday, Mary Katharine Ham of "The Federalist", Matt Viser of "The Boston Globe", CNN's Manu Raju, as you just saw him there interviewing Lindsay Graham, and Jennifer Jacobs of "Bloomberg Politics".
Let's start with this remarkable Trump transition statement issued late Friday night after reports about the CIA's conclusion that Russia meddled to try to help Donald Trump broke. Here's the statement, "These are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The election ended a long time ago, in one of the biggest Electoral College victories in history. It's time to move on and make America great again."
Picking a fight with the CIA is not known in this town as a smart tactic. However, and we'll get to his potential choice for secretary of state in a minute, what Donald Trump has said about Russia. It's very clear, that number one, Donald Trump doesn't want to believe this, but to pick an open fight with the CIA before you take office, why?
JENNIFER JACOBS, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: Well, for one thing, their statement about the CIA isn't quite right. Remember that Senate investigation concluded that the Bush administration overstated that underlying intelligence about the weapons of mass destruction. But what we know is Donald Trump's rigged argument is coming back to haunt him. He's always going to fight this, because if he doesn't, you know, it delegitimizes the fact that he is a duly elected president. So, they are always going to deny that the Russians had anything to do with this.
KING: Anything to do with it. And I guess that's the key point, there's a lot of important substance to talk about here, a lot of specific concerns people have about the relationship with Russia and whether Trump has this idolized view or idealistic view, romanticized view of Vladimir Putin.
But to your point, is this that he doesn't trust the intelligence, is this a macho thing where he doesn't want anyone to cast questions about, that he won, that it was somehow influenced?
Listen to Sean Spicer here, who worked at the Republican National Committee, he's now involved in the Trump transition, my colleague, Michael Smerconish, is trying to push him on this question saying, the election's over, no one is trying to take the White House away from Donald Trump. They just want to find out what happened, learn some lessons.
Listen to Sean.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEAN SPICER, CHIEF STRATEGIST AND COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR, RNC: What proof does anyone have they affected the outcome? Because I've heard zero, OK?
[08:05:01] So, show me what facts have actually shown that anything undermined that election.
Donald Trump won with 306 electoral votes, 2,300 counties, 62 million Americans voted for him. So, what proof do you have or does anyone have that any of this affected the outcome of this election?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: It's not the point. No one is saying if we find evidence of -- more evidence of Russian hacking, they say they have plenty. And they say if they find more evidence of it -- no one is saying we're going to take the election away. Why would Donald Trump be opposed to find out if a foreign state actor, who also bullies his neighbors, responsible for killing innocent children in Syria, might have been meddling in American democracy? MARY KATHARINE HAM, THE FEDERALIST: Well, it's a fine line to walk
through delicate dance and he's not great at delicate dances. And also, this is his style, right? He punches back, that's one thing he does and he sows distrust.
And so, that's exactly what that statement did. Look, I'm glad that there is a bipartisan consensus that, hey, we should look into this, because we are vulnerable. And we'll be vulnerable in the future if you don't figure out what the heck is going on. But for his part, yes, there is a part of this, well, I won, so let's not -- he's afraid of the delegitimizing part of it, and I think the Hillary Clinton campaign joining in these recounts tht happen sort of got his hackles up.
KING: Well, but to that point, again, I get I won, the pride of winning. The recounts help Donald Trump, he won. The recounts found nothing, he won.
So, what is the harm in looking at what Vladimir Putin, what -- if the Russian government at that level was involved? What's the harm of looking now so he knows? I guess the other question is, why is it when American intelligence agencies tell him things, his reflex seems to be to doubt it?
MATT VISER, THE BOSTON GLOBE: That's the biggest thing to me, Donald Trump is not trusting what the intelligence agencies are telling him. Presumably, in these briefings that he's having.
The other thing that I think to watch is the test of power that we're going to see potentially come January when Republicans are challenging the Republican president. John McCain already has some pretty strong language on Putin, Lindsey Graham. Some people in key positions are preparing to challenge Donald Trump over his friendliness with Russia. So, that's going to be a key clash between Congress and the White House.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL REPORTER: But I do think a lot of Republicans do side with Donald Trump, too, who do not want to look into this as much as John McCain does and as much as Lindsey Graham. In some ways, they are the minority of their own party.
There's a push within the House from a Democrats to create a bipartisan commission, like the 9/11 Commission, to look into that, to look into what happened here, but you're not hearing a lot of support from Republicans on that.
KING: It's numbing to me, having been in this town for a while, if Donald Trump is right and the CIA is wrong, then let's do that investigation so we can fix whatever the CIA is doing. And if the CIA is right and Putin was meddling in our election, then let's build the comprehensive case so Donald Trump's new secretary of state, who apparently maybe somebody who has a good relationship with Vladimir Putin, can call him on it. Change your behavior, we're going to sanction you.
To the point about Capitol Hill that Matt made, you interviewed both McCain and Lindsey Graham this week. Listen to Lindsey Graham here saying this is a big deal and I don't care, I'm not backing down.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GRAHAM: It's pretty clear to me that WikiLeaks was designed to hurt Clinton, and it could be us tomorrow, to my Republican friends. As a nation, this is not a partisan issue when a foreign country tries to interfere in our elections and all evidence suggests Russia did, but I'm going to withhold judgment until we do the investigation. You cannot let that go without a strong, strong pushback.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Again, big fundamental question about the relationship with Russia, but on this specific point, anyone who I've spoken to and you spoke to them this week, who's been in these classified briefings, Democrat or Republican, or people at the White House say there's no evidence -- I mean, there's no question Russia is doing this. There are questions about how high it went, how deep it was, there are -- one agency might disagree with the CIA's finding that they were doing this specifically to help Trump. That's what they want to get to the bottom of, of the president selection.
I just don't get the point why we wouldn't want to know the answer.
JACOBS: You even had the Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn of Texas saying, well, you know, listen, this is a serious thing. But this has been going on for a long time, I don't know why anyone is surprised by this.
But what I would say is, you know, if the Republicans are -- I just lost my train of thought.
KING: It's OK.
HAM: It's one of the few things Trump has been consistent about, defending Trump and being rather sanguine about Russia. And so, I'm not surprised this is the way it's going down. Nice to see the other side of the aisle come to Mitt Romney's conclusion about Russia being a threat from 2012.
(CROSSTALK)
RAJU: But one of the people in the room is Senator Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, in one of those September meetings, according to that "Post" article and according to sources that confirmed this for me, that he actually tried to suggest that we don't want to go forward and have a bipartisan conclusion that Russia interfered with the elections to help Donald Trump. So, you're not hearing complete consensus on the Republican side, and the question going forward is whether or not the leadership, the relationship leadership, Paul Ryan, Mitch McConnell, will side with the people like Lindsey graham and John McCain to make a strong case against Russia.
[08:10:13] And if Donald Trump is pushing back, it's going to be very hard for them to push back against Donald Trump. VISER: The other thing with Trump is healthy ego, you know, so you
have here a question over him needing help to win the election. And he doesn't like that notion. So, I think that's a part of what he's pushing back against.
It happens to be Russia, which he's had criticism over his close ties with, but more, it's hitting him that he didn't do this on his own, that he needed help, you know, not only help, but help from a foreign government, you know, to get across the finish line here. So, I think that's kind of what's fuelling some of his --
KING: If that's all it is, it's testosterone and it's machoism. But the way Sean Spicer, the thing that struck me about the interview with Michael Smerconish, is when smart people, and Sean is very smart, who are normally very calm, who usually make their case in a methodical way get so worked up, it makes you wonder what are they worried about?
JACOBS: And he denied firmly that the RNC had been hacked. But, you know, everyone should be worried about that if the Russian government has these e-mails, private e-mails from the Republican national officials, if they want to destabilize the Trump administration, all they have to do is at some point release an e-mail from someone like his new chief of staff Reince Priebus that's critical of Donald Trump during the campaign to create a rift in that administration.
KING: In the wake of this, statement comes out Friday night saying these are the same people that said Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, he pokes the CIA. And then, yesterday, it leaks out that he has another meeting with Rex Tillerson, the CEO of ExxonMobil, and that Rex Tillerson is likely to be named secretary of state in the coming week.
Rex Tillerson has received a high award from the Russian government. Rex Tillerson has cut a lot of deals with the Russian government. Rex Tillerson is described personally as a friend of Putin, if you will.
So, Donald Trump is not stepping back from this. He's essentially poking again as he does this.
Listen to him. He's on "FOX News Sunday" today, Donald Trump. He doesn't confirm that Rex Tillerson is the pick, but he speaks quite favorably.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: Well, in his case, he's much more than a business executive. I mean, he's a world class player. He's in charge of, I guess, the largest company in the world. To me, a great advantage is he knows many of the players, and he knows them well. He does massive deals in Russia. He does massive deals for the company, not for himself, for the company.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, that's Donald Trump on Rex Tillerson. Let's bring quickly in here John McCain, who you spoke to about this yesterday. John McCain maybe thinks Rex Tillerson is a big player, but --
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R), ARIZONA: Concerns of reports of his relation with Vladimir Putin, who's a thug and a murderer, but that's -- we will have hearings and that issue and other issues concerning him.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
RAJU: It's interesting to hear McCain come out aggressively against him so early. McCain has been actually pretty cautious in criticizing Trump. He doesn't want to talk about Trump. He's made that very, very clear, in multiple interviews. It just shows that this is -- could be a difficult confirmation process if Tillerson does not assuage those Russia, those defense hawks, those people who are very skeptical of Russia, because if he loses two or three Republican votes and Democrats vote against him, he will not get confirmed. That's going to be a big hurdle for him going forward.
JACOBS: And there are some within Trump's inner circle who are hesitant about this Tillerson pick and have been advising him against it, just for that exact reason, saying that this is the one pick that really could run into resistance.
KING: He'll have Democrats going after him on climate issues, on big oil issues, although Tillerson inside of Exxon has sent a lot of money into renewable fuels and doing the research, although he represents big oil, so Democrats will come at him there. Will he become a proxy just for Republicans who want to take a few --
HAM: So, this is what I wonder. I'm open to the idea an unconventional pick at secretary of state could be effective and a player who knows people all over the world is something we can consider, but what concerns me is the consistency of this attitude toward Russia that seems quite friendly. I think that the Senate, if they want to assert their power along this transition, that this might be the place they do it.
VISER: And there's 48 Democrats coming in. You need three Republicans. People like Joe Manchin, you know, don't sort of peel away to stop a pick like this. The other interesting point is, you know, by all accounts it was down to sort of Mitt Romney who called Russia the chief geopolitical foe, and Rex Tillerson, who has a close relationship with Vladimir Putin.
So, it is a striking tone that Trump is setting in going with Tillerson over Mitt Romney at this juncture.
KING: Not just inside or outside or establishment, anti-establishment -- very, you're right, completely starkly different views. We'll continue this conversation in a moment.
Also this, forget team of rivals, the Trump cabinet is shaping up as a team of billionaires and the president-elect says that's a good thing for the little guy.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:19:11] KING: Welcome back.
Rudy Giuliani out of the running and it looks like Mitt Romney soon will be, too. As we just discussed, we're told to expect big oil's Rex Tillerson, as the president-elect's choice, for the most important cabinet job still open, secretary of state.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I believe we're in the process of putting together one of the great cabinets that's ever been assembled in our nation's history. You're seeing that.
(APPLAUSE)
And you'll be seeing some more names coming out next week.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now, we won't know the true direction of this group until next month, but there are a few things we do know. The president-elect likes generals and billionaires and it seems he doesn't mind sending mixed signals, like taking time to meet with Al Gore and Leonardo DiCaprio, but then naming a climate change denier to lead the Environmental Protection Agency.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
[08:20:00] TRUMP: We're going to protect the family farm, and we are going to end the EPA intrusion into your lives.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I want to talk about what we're learning about his, the president-elect's philosophy, and how he's picking these people and who they are, and the change -- the big change they are likely to bring to Washington.
But let's stay on the potential Tillerson appointment and the idea of where it fits into this context of skepticism in many parts about Donald Trump's, I'll call it coziness, or his affinity to Russia and Putin. You have some new information just out this morning.
RAJU: Yes, that's right. Actually, a joint statement, a very unusual joint statement by leading senators from Republicans and Democrats, John McCain, the Republican, Lindsey Graham, as well as Democratic -- the incoming Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and Jack Reed, ranking member in the Armed Services Committee coming out with a strong statement on Russia, saying just now that our Democratic institutions have been targeted and recent reports of Russian interference in our elections should alarm every American.
They go on to talk about the impact that this may have, and they say that we have an obligation to thoroughly examine these incidents and come up with comprehensive solutions to deter and defend against further cyber attacks. They say this is not a partisan issue.
So, it shows a pressure that is going to exist from some corners of the Republican party and Democrats, too, to push for something. And very significant they'd put together a joint statement like this -- in particular, the incoming Democratic leader and someone as prominent as John McCain.
KING: And to put it out early on a Sunday morning, when they know this is going to be a topic on the Sunday conversations, when they know that Donald Trump's interview was taped with "FOX News Sunday", is going to be asked about this, when they knew the Tillerson news, potentially the secretary of state, is in the mix.
It brings up a point where they say there's no doubt this happened and they want to find out the depth and scope of it, when Donald Trump just told "TIME" this past week, "I don't believe they interfered. That became a laughing point, not a talking point, a laughing point. Any time I do something, they say, oh, Russia interfered. Again, anyone who's seen the intelligence says it's -- it's beyond question that they interfered. They want to get into the hows and the whys and the how deep, but Donald Trump just won't believe it.
JACOBS: This is Congress, both sides, standing up to the president- elect.
KING: What's that tell you?
VISER: It's going to be an interesting January and February, you know? I mean, I think that McCain, especially, you know, the 2008 Republican nominee, who, you know, has -- both of these guys, by the way, McCain and Graham have had testy relationships with Donald Trump and Donald Trump revealing Lindsey Graham's cell phone number a year ago.
So, the idea of those two guys like now flexing their muscle -- and, you know, Trump is not in a campaign dynamic anymore. This is a dynamic testing the powers of Washington.
HAM: I also think this is going to be a pick your battles presidency, like you're going to have to be really careful about where you contest Trump. And there's going to be so many moments to get outraged, they are choosing a topic they believe is very serious and could actually breach --
RAJU: And also, I mentioned in the last segment that Republican leaders have been quiet on this, but having McCain and Graham bang drums on this is going to make it hard for them to continue to stay quiet. They are going to have to say something, particularly someone like Mitch McConnell who's been a hawk and criticized Putin, so is Paul Ryan. I think it also shows that this Russia issue is going to loom over Donald Trump.
KING: I think that the McConnells and the Ryans were hoping Trump would change his tune on this during the transition, that this should be one of things, as he learned more information, that he got, he took the intelligence briefings, which we're told he's not taking as often as he could, that he would change his tune on this. And it's certainly -- McCain sent a signal.
Let's go back in time. Philip Bump with the "Washington Post", by the way, has a great info graphic on the site. If you want to look the last time Donald Trump had a press conference. He won the election and we haven't had a chance to question him much. He's allegedly going to have a press conference, let's see if he takes questions, later this week, to talk about how he handles the Trump Organization, his business.
But the last time Trump did have a press conference was when he essentially encouraged Russia to produce Hillary Clinton's e-mails. That's part of this little bit from the campaign.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: I'm not afraid of Putin, I don't know Putin. I never met Putin. I respect Putin, he's a strong leader, I can tell you that.
Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e- mails that are missing.
I don't think anybody knows it was Russia that broke into the DNC. She's saying Russia, Russia, Russia. But I don't -- maybe it was.
I mean, it could be Russia, but it could also be China. It could also be lots of other people. It could also be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds, OK?
From everything I see has no respect for this person.
HILLARY CLINTON (D), FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: Well, that's because he'd rather have a puppet as president of the United States.
TRUMP: No puppet, no puppet.
CLINTON: It's pretty clear --
TRUMP: You're the puppet.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: There's good theater from the campaign, but about an incredibly important issue, the relationship with Russia. Donald Trump says we want to -- where we can, we should get along with Russia. Nobody should disagree with that. There are strategic interests that have to be played out.
But Russia has bullied its neighbors, including taking territory from its neighbors. Russia is involved with Assad and they are killing children in Syria. And the question is really, now, Rex Tillerson, potentially a friend of Putin, the secretary of state, could be a good thing. The guy has a relationship with Putin, might be able to deliver hard truths.
[08:25:04] But also, General Michael Flynn, who will be the national security adviser, who attended a Kremlin dinner, was seated next to Vladimir Putin, who's said some nice things about Russia, also some hard things about Russia.
But this is the big question people are asking is that, you know, where is this mindset from Donald Trump coming from?
HAM: Well, the other question is, does a letter from a bunch of senators make him more likely to go (INAUDIBLE) than not? I'm not sure with him. That's the weirdness of the Donald Trump presidency, figuring out who influences him and how. It is a mystery.
RAJU: Yes. Jim Mattis, the likely defense secretary nominee, who probably will get confirmed, I would think, is actually more critical of Vladimir Putin, far more than say Flynn is and apparently Rex Tillerson, he's an ally of Putin.
So, there will be people with different views of Putin in the cabinet. How that affects Donald Trump, though, is a different question.
JACOBS: There's been a signal that he wants to do a good cop, bad cop thing with China, with his selection of Terry Branstad, the Iowa governor for the ambassador to China. Obviously, you know, Terry Branstad is a long-time friend of many Chinese leaders, and that was a signal that Trump is willing to have someone who's a little friendlier be his liaison, so we almost thought there would be the opposite for secretary of state. But he is choosing, apparently, someone who has a real bridge to Russia.
KING: The good cop/bad cop thing can work, the question is, what does the boss say? He will be president. He will make these decisions in the end. We'll continue the conversation.
Up next, he likes to work the phones and start Twitter wars. How much have we seen from candidate Trump and we're now seeing from President- elect Trump will carry over once it's all official in just 40 days?
But, first, take our INSIDE POLITICS quiz of the week, what do you make of the president-elect tweets? Is it just Trump being Trump? Trump being presidential? Or Trump going too far?
You can vote now. Of course you want to, at CNN.com/vote.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
[08:30:47] JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR: Welcome back. We are getting some early lessons about how our president-elect plans to govern. If you're a company planning to move jobs overseas, well, expect a phone call.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: I say, hi, how are you doing? Hello, Mr. President-elect, congratulations. Yes, congratulations. By the way, while we're on the phone, don't leave. Please don't leave. Please. And we've had great success. You'll be seeing a lot more success.
(END VIDEO CLIP) KING: And if you're a critic who goes on television to suggest Trump is grossly exaggerating those successes, well, brace for a tweet storm. Just ask Chuck Jones, the Indiana steelworkers union leader, who says Trump is hyping how many jobs Carrier will now keep in Indiana as part of a deal brokered by the president-elect. Trump responds with tweets attacking Jones personally -- you see those there -- and attacking his union local.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
CHUCK JONES, PRESIDENT, UNITED STEELWORKERS LOCAL 1999: He overreacted, President-elect Trump did, and I would expect if he's going to tweet something, he should come out and try to justify his numbers.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: What are we learning here? Some of this is funny and some of it is entertaining, but some that also is, I think, you know, especially if you're a Trump critic out there, take a deep breath. He's going to be different. He was a different candidate, he's different in the transition. What are we learning about the governing thing, especially when it comes to, you know, calling a company or going after a critic on television? Do we expect Donald Trump -- if somebody on this panel, somebody else says something harsh against him or raises questions about him, he's going to spend his days as president doing this?
JENNIFER JACOBS, BLOOMBERG POLITICS: I think he's learning it's effective. It's going to become more clear over time that people don't want to be, you know, inciting the ire of the 45th president and companies that don't want to be at the wrong end of a tweet storm are going to, you know, do what he requests.
MANU RAJU, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: It showcases a potential interventionist president, something that I think would give a lot of Republicans pause who don't like to see a president in the White House picking winners and losers, and it also shows just the power of his social media. I don't think we should -- we can overstate because anything that he says on Twitter, he's going to get and command a national, international audience. He can change the conversation, which is the 140 characters. Really, we saw it in the campaign, we're seeing this already when he tweeted about Boeing and essentially changed the focus away from a discussion that day, which was about Michael Flynn and his son pushing fake news stories about a very popular pizza place in Washington, D.C., that led to a gunman showing up. So we're showing -- seeing a little bit of both, intervention in the economy, and as well as the way he uses Twitter.
KING: You mentioned how he uses it to distract us or to get us to follow the next bouncing ball or flashing red light. General Flynn was in the news that day, but the Boeing attack questioning the cost of the new Air Force One also they came the very same day the CEO of Boeing was quoted in the "Chicago Tribune" questioning Trump's policies on trade. And so is this -- and again, I mean it the way I mean it, this is a new version of the bully pulpit. MARY KATHARINE HAM, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Yes. I think there's
some of that involved here, and you're right, you cannot freak out about every single Donald Trump tweet. Many people have tried that. It's exhausting.
(LAUGHTER)
HAM: But I think he's going to be different. This is going to be part of it. And there's a part of it that I think is genuinely dangerous. Like the flag tweet is actually chilling speech if you're saying that and you're the president-elect of the United States. But you can't tell Donald Trump that because this is what got him here. And the overreaction to so much of it does, all the sound and fury gives Republicans, by the way, the room to do all the things that they would like to do while everyone is focusing on something else. And I think that's what happened in some of these Senate races with Rob Portman and others who were just like, I'm just going to be the regular guy over here while all this noise is happening. And I think that's sort of the weird magic of Donald Trump for some of this.
MATT VISER, THE BOSTON GLOBE: There's a thing about scalability, I think, with Trump and one is that the -- he's had a big megaphone, but he's about to get a bigger one in the Oval Office as president. And the other thing is, during the campaign a lot of times he would punch down, you know, he would make fun of Rand Paul at the end of the stage, you know, when there's no need necessarily to. And you know, he won, but you see that now with the union issue. You know, a guy that, you know, is out there, you know, that Trump just can't contain himself to not punch down at that guy and not focusing on some of the bigger, broader issues.
[08:35:03] So I think there's an ability to distract Trump, you know, and have him go after sort of people who are smaller than him and now he's president of the United States.
KING: That guy, the union man did say in the "Washington Post" op-ed before he was on television that Trump was lying through his -- rhymes with grass -- about, you know, about the numbers in the Carrier deal. And I think we'll have this debate. You mentioned, you know, A, the numbers, but, B, Republicans saying, is this free market economics? The president of the United States acting kind of like a governor, calling up CEOs, saying, stay, don't go.
We'll add up the numbers in six months or a year and see what the actual impact is, but if you're the blue-collar guy in a bar, in a union hall, you're thinking great, you're thinking great. You know, the problem -- one of the reasons I voted for Trump and one of the reasons I'm so mad at Washington is because none of those astards do anything for me. And so I think those -- politically for Trump for the little guy out there it shows that he cares.
RAJU: Yes, and --
HAM: That's who he is. It's fundamentally who he is, he wants to be the guy on the phone making the deal. He wants to be in the room where it happens. That's him. Right? KING: Right.
HAM: I mean, I think you will see a lot of that even when I think it has some chilling effects on the economy -- on how free market --
(CROSSTALK)
RAJU: It's going to be really hard to get stuff done through Congress. He can do things on his own like this, he can obviously say he's achieving things that he campaigned on, even if he has a difficult time getting support for things on Capitol Hill.
KING: You think Mike Pence would get it, but do you think Donald Trump gets the (INAUDIBLE) reference there?
Another point, though, you know, it's all fine, it's part of the strategy. The question is sometimes it's not exactly fact based. First I want you to listen to Kellyanne Conway, senior adviser to Trump, now in the transition, she was the campaign manager, here on CNN talking when the question was, is Donald Trump going to somehow as president of the United States stay involved, keep his executive producer title for the new "Celebrity Apprentice" which of course involves Arnold Schwarzenegger? But Trump has a relationship with the founding of the business, he still has an executive producer title. Here's Kellyanne Conway.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
KELLYANNE CONWAY, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: He is conferring with all types of experts to tell him what he is allowed to do and not to do as the president of the United States, and if this is one of the approved activities, then perhaps he'll consider staying on. Were we so concerned about the hours and hours and hours spent on the golf course of the current president? I mean, presidents have a right to do things in their spare time or the leisure time. I mean, nobody objects to that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Presidents do have a right to do what they want to do in his spare time and, then of course, if they are willing to take the public scrutiny that comes with it, President Obama golfed, took a lot of grief for that. President Bush used to go to the ranch in Texas. Took a lot of grief for that. We'll see what Donald Trump does, but you just heard Kellyanne Conway speaking calmly, saying, hey, we're going to look into this, we're going to talk to the lawyers, we're going to talk to ethics guys, and if it's allowed he'll probably do this to some degree.
Well, here's Donald Trump, "Reports by at CNN that I'll be working on 'the Apprentice' during my presidency even part time are ridiculous and untrue. Fake news."
So, Mr. Trump, is Kellyanne Conway lying?
(LAUGHTER) HAM: We're all speechless. We elected a businessman, an outsider president, but he's also a reality TV star and he is a master of creating a show. And we will see a show for the next four years.
VISER: I don't get the rationale necessarily for continuing. I mean, the credit is his, he did produce the show, you know, he deserves to have his name on the credits, and maybe take money from it, but I don't get why he accepts that. I mean, takes the scrutiny of it. He's now president of the United States. And Newt Gingrich had a comment the other day about how he doesn't need to be executive producer of the "Celebrity Apprentice." He's the executive producer of the country now. You know, so, he can afford to give that up. But, you know I think there's still something about the show for him.
KING: He is different, he was different, he is different, he will be different. And we will keep watching.
Up next, repealing Obamacare is the first agenda item for the new year. Republicans say it's keeping a long overdue promise. Some Democrats are betting it's the first step in their party's comeback.
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[08:41:57] KING: Welcome back. House Speaker Paul Ryan visited Trump Tower for a meeting with the president-elect on Friday and said he wanted to get off to a quick start when Congress returns in January.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
REP. PAUL RYAN (R), HOUSE SPEAKER: Very exciting meeting. I really enjoyed coming up here meeting with the president-elect. We had a great meeting to talk about our transition. We're very excited about getting to work and hitting the ground running in 2017 to put this country back on track.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: Now both House and Senate Republicans promise to make repealing the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, their first action. Republicans think the Affordable Care Act was huge in their success in 2010, 2014, and again in 2016. Democrats think, well, we're going to use this to mount a comeback.
Let's look at the numbers. There were 15.7 percent of Americans who were uninsured before Obamacare took effect. That percentage is now down to 6.9 percent. Democrats are saying you repeal this law, what are you going to do about this big progress, right, shrinking that -- that uninsured rate.
Here are the numbers. About 29 million people right now uninsured. The Urban Institute says if you just repeal Obamacare, you'll have close to 60 million. Democrats say that is a huge political burden for Republicans. Republicans say, well, we're going to replace it. We're going to have a new market based system to do it, but Democrats at the moment say, go ahead.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. CHARLES SCHUMER (D), INCOMING MINORITY LEADER: Just repealing Obamacare, even though they have nothing to put in its place and saying they'll do it sometime down the road will cause huge calamity from one end of America to the other. They don't know what to do. They are like the dog that caught the bus.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: "They're like the dog that caught the bus." You know, Republicans are saying they are going to do this because they believe they promised the voters so they're going to do it right out of the box, but they're going to also have a however, a semicolon in there, that says we repeal it, but the repeal doesn't take effect until two years, what? Two years down the line, three years down the line?
RAJU: This is procedurally they're almost forced to do it this way because under the Senate rules you can actually avoid a filibuster by repealing most of the law, doing it through the budget process and that's going to happen in January, but you can't replace the law by avoiding a Senate filibuster. You need to get Democratic support in the Senate. You need 60 votes. That means eight Democrats, 52 Republicans, and it's going to be very difficult for Republicans to stay united, let alone get Democrats on board.
You're already hearing Democratic leaders say we're not going to work with Republicans on replacement. You're going to be on your own. If you're going to repeal the law, you're going to own all the problems that come with it. So that's one of the problems. The other one is that if you repeal the law, some believe that even if there's a two or three-year transition period, a lot of insurers are going to pull out of the market right away, others will, as well, and it could create chaos in the market before a replacement takes effect. So even though they can do a repeal and they probably will, there's also a lot of challenges ahead in how you replace it.
KING: And it was so influential, Republicans would say, in 2010 midterms when they took the Congress back, in 2014, when they built on that. They say it helped them in 2016, as well. Are the Democrats right or naive in thinking that this potential chaos could actually end up them being the seeds of their comeback?
[08:45:01] HAM: Here's the part that Democrats don't mention, it's already happening. They are already pulling out of the exchanges. The rates are already going up in huge numbers and it wasn't called the uninsured Americans act, it was called the Affordable Care Act, and that is the part where even those who have been insured have serious problems with these astronomical deductibles and even if the premiums are subsidized not being that cheap.
So there are more problems than Democrats led on right now. The trick is, that if you want to do health care reform and keep your promises, that's really, really hard. Democrats learned that. They didn't keep the promises that came with this last round of reform. And that's what you're going to run into every time. KING: And the president-elect promised if you have pre-existing
conditions, won't happen again. If you're -- on your piece, he said liked you can stay on your parents' health insurance until you're 26. He's on record in the campaign saying a lot of things that are going to be hard and expensive.
VISER: Democrats have always struggled in the messaging on health care. So I think to the degree that this flips, it's a lot easier for them to argue, you know what, under the Republican plan you're going to lose your health insurance. You know, it's an easier messaging thing for Democrats to make in that way where they're not necessarily selling the Affordable Care Act, which has been sort of disastrous as sort of sell, you know, to the American public.
RAJU: What will be interesting to see is any sort of blowback that Trump voters give towards Republicans because a lot of the people who are benefiting from the law right now are lower income folks, people relying on the subsidies that the Affordable Care Act, that Obamacare gives them. Some of those folks coming from the white working class that overwhelmingly voted for Donald Trump. How does that impact them politically and how does that impact these folks who are relying on the law? So a lot of questions that are unanswered about how this will play out.
KING: They're going to have to get to the substance, they're going to be in charge of everything. The Republicans are going to be in charge of town. You mentioned blowback. One of the interesting things to watch as the president-elect continues his victory lap, his tour, thank you tour as he calls it, is when he mentions President Obama. His tone is completely changed. Remember during the campaign he was the worst president ever, he was incompetent, he was part of Hillary Clinton.
But now he had that meeting at the Oval Office, apparently they've been in touch a couple of times since. Listen here, this is Donald Trump on the road, this one's Friday, I believe this is Louisiana and a little bit from Michigan when the subject of the president comes up.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: President Obama, who by the way I've gotten along with so well -- no, no, he's really doing great. He's been so nice. It was like all of a sudden with President Obama and Michelle and Bill and Hillary, and they were going to Michigan. No, it's OK. No. Forget it. That plays great before the election. Now we don't care, right?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
KING: I love that the president is now his buddy.
JACOBS: Just shows that Donald Trump is a grownup, but he has always listened to advice from others. That's been kind of a myth that he's just a one-man show. He has always listened to advice. But speaking of grownup, does it seem like he seems like he's aged a little bit, even in just this short amount of time since the election, that the enormity has really kind of hit him? He just seems tired. We spend a lot of time looking at Trump's face and --
HAM: Low energy?
KING: Don't say that.
JACOBS: No.
KING: Oh, no. Go back and look at Bill Clinton at the end. George W. Bush, beginning and end. President Obama beginning and end, it's pretty striking what the job can do to you. We shall see.
Our reporters share from their notebooks next, including a familiar name in the United States Senate but with a very big difference.
And here are the results from our INSIDE POLITICS question this morning. We asked what you thought of President-elect Trump's tweets. Almost all of you said he's going too far. No. Give him a break. Hang in there.
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[08:52:44] KING: Welcome back. We fill our INSIDE POLITICS table each week with reporters, not pundits, and we close by asking them to share a bit of reporting to help you get ahead of some big political news just around the corner. Mary Katherine?
HAM: Well, there's a Kennedy in the Senate again. It's the age of Trump, so I don't want this big news getting lost under some tweets today. In the state of Louisiana, Republican state treasurer, John Kennedy, won his run-off against his Democratic challenger, who got no help from national Democrats to become the 52nd Republican in the Senate. And I just think it's emblematic of how far we've come from the conventional wisdom which was Democrats had this coalition of the ascendant, even in southern states. They were going to make this big inroads. And in case Democrats ever wonder whether 2016 is truly trolling them, a Republican John Kennedy in the Senate.
KING: It's the Kennedys of Massachusetts, probably don't love that that much. Matt?
VISER: We've talked a lot about the incoming secretary of State. There's also an outgoing one. John Kerry is about to conclude more than three decades in public life as a senator, as a presidential candidate, and as secretary of State, and it's starting to set in, the reality of that. He's got a few trips still scheduled. He's already the most traveled secretary of State in history, the equivalent of 123 straight days on an airplane over his four years.
And now he's about to hand over the reins potentially to Rex Tillerson, which is going to require a lot of diplomacy in that handoff. Much of what Kerry has worked for, his accomplishments include the Iran deal, the Paris climate deal, are potentially going to be dismantled, so Kerry will work from the outside still on climate change, it's a big passion of his, but for the first time since 1983 outside of public office.
KING: Long ago when I worked in Boston, he was lieutenant governor. It's been a long ride for John Kerry. Manu?
RAJU: John, Democrats' strategy with Donald Trump amounts to this. Divide and conquer. What they are trying to do is to latch on to Donald Trump's more popular and populist economic proposals that actually divide Republicans, like his 35 percent tariff on companies that ship operations overseas or renegotiating or potentially pulling out of NAFTA.
The idea, of course, is try to attract some of those white working class voters who they struggled with in the elections, but also it raises some concerns among Democrats who believe that the rush to normalize Donald Trump in their words will make it harder for them to paint him as an extreme president.
[08:55:05] But right now watch for them to look and start to talk about those economic issues, particularly for those senators in difficult races in 2018.
KING: Forty days to figure out their strategy. Jennifer?
JACOBS: One person who has amassed some real power in the Trump transition is a woman who home-schools her four children and co-owns a bakery in Manhattan, Rebecca Mercer is the 43-year-old daughter of a billionaire GOP donor and I'm told her talent is bringing in talent. So she has her fingerprints on everything from the search for secretary of State to the press secretary, to the new GOP chairman.
And what's interesting about her is her family has pushed for years this agenda's antiestablishment populist agenda and now she is one of the main influencers for the Trump Cabinet.
KING: Shake up the Trump Cabinet. Not a bad thing to have some new faces here in town.
I'll close with this. Donald Trump was one of 17 candidates, you might remember, who sought the Republican nomination for president. So far only one of the other 16 has been tapped for a Cabinet job. Ben Carson is the choice to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development. But there could soon be a second. During the primaries the former Texas governor Rick Perry called Trump a cancer on conservatism , but they later made peace. And a well-sourced Republican says keep an eye on Perry as Trump rounds out his picks in the days ahead. We certainly will.
That's it for INSIDE POLITICS. Again, thanks for sharing your Sunday morning. We'll see you soon. Up next, Vice President Joe Biden joins "STATE OF THE UNION" with Jake Tapper.
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