Return to Transcripts main page

Inside Politics

Notre-Dame's Bells Ring Out For First Time Since 2019 Blaze; Trump Sees Popular Vote Win As Mandate For Expansive Agenda; Source: Wiles Promises To Block "Clown Car" From WH; Trump Picks Campaign Manager Susie Wiles As Chief Of Staff; GOP Retakes Control Of Senate, House Control Still Unclear; Republicans Flip Senate, Will Have At Least 52 Seats; Trump Plans Quick Action On Immigration, Tariffs, Energy; Special Counsel "Assessing" Future Of Trump Criminal Case. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 08, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, NEWSROOM: Back in 2019, the world watched in shock as a catastrophic blaze engulfed the iconic 850-year-old cathedral, destroying its famed spire but not Parisian spirit.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Which we think it will be a great moment for France because there is good news. Lots of people came here to pray. We were just praying with my daughter at this moment. And I think it's good, maybe something good will come from this big blaze.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BROWN: Thank you for joining us. I'm Pamela Brown. You can follow me on Instagram, TikTok and X @pamelabrowncnn. Stay with us. Inside Politics with Dana Bash, up next.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on Inside Politics, savoring the victory. Top advisers say Donald Trump feels emboldened after a decisive election victory. And they say he's already preparing the massive policy overhaul, he promised on immigration, trade, taxes and much more.

Plus, are Republican majorities in Congress ready to pass anything the new president wants. We'll talk to Senator-elect Jim Banks, a top Trump ally and member of the new Republican Senate majority. And what now? That is the question so many Democrats are asking, but few have answers. The party is grappling with how to move forward after losses across nearly all demographics.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

We start at Mar-a-Lago. It's a place that's become the hub for activity having to do with the Trump transition, all things Trump transition. Really the president-elect has 73 days until he moves back into the White House. He's already picked a chief of staff and is gaming out plans for his first days in office. Of course, these will be Trump's second first days in office. And we're told that he's in a quote, completely different head space than the last time around.

CNN's Kristen Holmes is in West Palm Beach, right near Mar-a-Lago. That is your reporting about the different head space. Explain it, Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, Dana. Last time Donald Trump did not really know what he was getting into. You have to remember that Donald Trump's campaign wasn't sure he was going to win. A lot of how they were operating with seat of the pants, and they threw out his entire transition plan that Chris Christie had put together because of the rift between Christie and Donald Trump.

It is a completely different scenario now. Donald Trump has a working transition that is putting all of the pieces together, and he has a better understanding of how Washington works. But one of the big things that I'm told Donald Trump has focused on in these conversations with people over the last 48 hours is how he won the popular vote, and what that means moving forward.

We know that Donald Trump wanted to win the popular vote. He was very upset in 2016 when people said his win was a fluke when he won the Electoral College. But now he's telling people that he believes he has a mandate, because this means that the American people stand behind some of the policies that he had put forward on the campaign trail, namely, when it comes to the economy and immigration.

So, we're already seeing the wheels turning on what they want to do in terms of the economy and immigration. They're having conversations behind closed doors as to what exactly they can do by just executive order and what needs to go through Congress.

Of course, as we know, he is likely to control the House, and he will control the Senate. So, anything that needs to go through Congress is going to probably get passed, but they want to try to enact some of this stuff on day one through executive order.

Now, these people who have spoken to Trump in the last 48 hours say that he's expressed gratitude in a way that they have never seen before. Talking about his campaign, how they did a good job.

Talking about Susie Wiles and Chris LaCivita. How he ended up getting these votes from these various different groups, including Latinos, black voters that he was being told he was going to get. But seeing it actually on paper has made him realize just how many people voted for him.

Of course, the big question now is how he actually runs his presidency. Donald Trump is not known for following through on a mandate. He often has a chaotic circle around him. As we know, part of the reason that he named Susie Wiles so quickly as his chief of staff was because they wanted this epicenter of power. They wanted to try to keep the chaos at bay.

The best reporting that we saw yesterday came from our Steve Contorno, who said that Susie's conditions were that they wouldn't allow the clown car to show up at the White House at will. That seems to be something Donald Trump agreed to. We'll see if they can stop the clown car from showing up at Mar-a-Lago in the next couple of months.

BASH: Yeah, that is great reporting. We're going to show the quote again in a bit. Thank you so much for your terrific recording. Kristen, appreciate it. I'm joined here at the table with some CNN all-stars, Phil Mattingly, and also Bloomberg and CNN's Nia-Malika Henderson, CNN's Gloria Borger and David Chalian. Hello, everybody. You made it to Friday early.

[12:05:00]

Gloria, pick up where Kristen left off about Trump, and I mean -- well, and also, like, I'm just thinking back. This is more information than you need, viewer, but I'll give it to you anyway. The four years during the Trump White House, we sort of -- we shared a wall in our office.

And how many times were we going back and forth, trying to keep up with the reporting of everything that was going on. And here we are again. And yet, we don't know how a second Trump term with four years out of office is going to actually play out.

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, he's been there before, so it's totally different because he knows a little bit more what to expect. He's also -- it looks like going to have control of both Houses of Congress. And he's got a chief of staff who has clearly outlined parameters for him before she would take the job, which I think is different.

Another big thing, and I think Kristen talked about this, is winning the popular vote. He now believes he has a huge mandate. The Democrats I've spoken to believe he's going to overstep that mandate, and that would give them an opportunity to respond.

But you know, he was upset. He didn't win the popular vote in 2016, although he probably said he did, but, but, but this is different this time. So, I think there's a different sense among both his people and the president-elect himself about what he can and cannot do and what the public will and will not accept.

BASH: And Phil, you covered the Trump White House for a bit. And I want to go back to what the -- what our colleague Steve Contorno reported, and he actually put the quote on the screen. This is about the mindset of Susie Wiles, who's going to be chief of staff. The clown car can't come into the White House at will, and he agrees with her.

Do you think that's realistic, given how Donald Trump sort of governs and operates even when he's not governing?

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Having done a lot of reporting on what a second term would look like over the course of the last year. I'm always struck by something somebody told me who's in kind of the inner circle a few months ago, which is Donald Trump has not changed. Everything around him has, in terms of now versus eight years ago. And I think the decision to name Susie Wiles as chief of staff is another signal that that is the case in terms of the people that are around him are Trump people.

Remember in 2016 when he was throwing out transition playbooks and trying to figure out, you know, the clown car was me standing out in front of Trump Tower waiting for Kanye West to walk in and do like an elevator red carpet thing up to meet with him, which was literally something that happened. And I think people might actually forget that. We did that for like, two months.

I'm sure David Chalian was sitting in his office just laughing at me because it was cold --

BASH: Because I was cold.

MATTINGLY: -- being that, while, you know, what Trump did on the campaign trail underscores like he's not that different than what he was before. He's the same person. The infrastructure around him, the Congress that he will be inheriting, the mandate that he believes he has, which is very different than what he had in 2016.

But most importantly, the planning and staffing infrastructure that exists because of the kind of constellation of outside groups -- we constantly talked about Project 2025. There were far more powerful and important and substantive operations outside of Project 2025 that were doing real work.

He is just at a different level of preparation beyond the fact that he's actually experienced it before. That I think most people got their heads around in the insanity of trying to cover a campaign. And I think that's being reflected, not just by that the decision to go with Susie Wiles' chief of staff, but also with what we've seen in these initial days at Mar-a-Lago, could change because he hasn't. But right now, I think it's a very tightly coordinated operation.

BASH: Can we just talk for one second about Susie Wiles because she will be history making, the first female chief of staff?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Some people call it the second most important job in Washington. You know, what is intriguing to me is her durability in this post Trump presidency era. I mean, she joins up with Trump in 2021, you know, shortly after he leaves the White House.

I can't think of many people in Trump's term in the White House who have that kind of responsibility and role to manage his operation that stay for three and a half years, which he has. And so, he -- he's not just going with someone because she won the campaign for kind of a thing. This is somebody who has been empowered by Trump to run the operation in his post presidency through his indictments, his trials, some conviction, assassination attempts, dealing with a different candidate at the top of the ticket.

[12:10:00] On the other side, like through all the political, legal realm. And she was steering that ship through it all. And there was no chaotic tweet of him firing her or bringing in somebody else. And so, his decision to go with her suggests to me, he sees value in that stability, at least over these last three and a half years.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, BLOOMBERG POLITICAL & POLICY COLUMNIST & CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: And trusts her, right? I mean, you kind of flash back to 2016, you know, the people he hired were essentially imposed on him, right? These were sort of establishment figures, people he didn't really know, filled his cabinet with, you know, people who sort of look the part but that he didn't really know. And so, these are kind of insiders, you know, that he trusts.

Listen, I think with Trump, he can be a bit chaotic, and he can be a little bit off the cuff. And it could be a year from now that Susie Wiles is out. He tends to, you know, sort of cycle through people. So, we'll see if that ends up happening sort of the old Trump. And he, you know, blows through even the people that he trusts because, you know, he trusted Steve Bannon as well, right, for a while, and he had been an insider, and that ended up not working out either.

BORGER: One more important thing, she was in-charge of who gets on the airplane and who doesn't. And that was -- you have to read Donald Trump's mind to figure out who's in and who's out. And that was a very important job.

BASH: That's such a good point. Let's talk about Congress. Phil, do you know a thing or two about Congress?

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: -- hardly, you know a lot more. And just going back in time to the last time Donald Trump was president. There were revolts, I think, among Hill Republicans over some of what he wanted to do policy wise. If you look back, we have some headlines.

I believe this is a CNN Headline from 2017 Hill Republicans revolt over Trump's plan to build a border wall. There were also -- there wasn't total support for repealing Obamacare replacing it with a new plan. Also, not for nothing. There was immigration that actually did not get through legislatively when he was president.

MATTINGLY: Yeah.

BASH: So, given whether or not the House is a majority or not, we know it's in the Senate. But given not just the numbers, but the makeup of which Republicans are actually filling these seats. How do you see it differently this time?

MATTINGLY: It's night and day, it could not be further away. You could count on two hands in both chambers, the number of Republicans in each conference that were very virulently pro Trump back in 2017 -- in January of 2017. Like you just -- could people forget this because of how much the party has transformed in his image. Back then, there just weren't people that were campaign. A lot of people had just run away from him because of the Access Hollywood tape right before the election, in which House Republicans had a phone call where Paul Ryan, the speaker of the House, literally told the entire conference, if you need to run away from him, run away from him. I don't want to talk about him right now anymore.

Nobody in Congress saved for two or three people here or there were big time Trump people. All of those people are gone, like they're gone now. And those who stayed have transformed and desperately need Trump and are looking right now at the electoral results where -- again, you talk about just how different this moment is.

Donald Trump's out running every Republican underneath him in the critical Senate races. These Republicans who are running in Pennsylvania or in Michigan or in Wisconsin. At the end, they made very clear, we have to hug him as tightly as possible, because he is the pathway to win, win in the last six cycles.

Have you seen Republicans glomming on to Donald Trump? We always saw them running away from him and trying to separate themselves from. He is the party in every way, shape or form. And that is -- there is no analog to 2017 with that.

BASH: And by the way, even Bob Casey, the Senate candidate --

MATTINGLY: Kind of had with Trump in it.

BASH: Yeah. It's not just Republicans trying to glom on, some Democrats too.

CHALIAN: Yeah. But to your point about him out running these Republican candidates in some of these Senate races, you know, there is also -- you know, why, why was Tammy Baldwin or an Elissa Slotkin able to win their races narrowly, where Harris fell short to Trump? Was it because the Republican candidates Eric Hovde or Mike Rogers are not Donald Trump, right?

And therefore, some of this power still may be Trump specific. So yes, these Republicans want to attach himself to it, but I think we're also learning that not every Republican can create the performance electorally in this environment that Donald Trump can.

[12:15:00]

BASH: Everybody standby. Up next, the GOP takeover of the U.S. Senate, which we were just discussing. I will talk to a new member of that new majority, Senator-elect Jim Banks of Indiana. And later Democrats in the wilderness, how they are assessing what happened and how they can find their way back.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: By CNN's count, Republicans have now flipped three Senate seats with the potential of picking up another, setting themselves up to have at least 52 seats in the U.S. Senate. I'm joined now by one new member of that majority, Senator-elect Jim Banks of Indiana, who currently serves in the House. Congratulations, sir. Thank you so much for being here.

REP. JIM BANKS, (R) INDIANA SENATOR-ELECT: Thank you.

BASH: One of the top issues in your campaign was immigration and the border. What is the first thing that you want the president-elect to do?

BANKS: Well, I have no doubt. Donald Trump is going to be inaugurated on January 20. He's going to hop in a car, drive down Pennsylvania Avenue, swing the door open of the Oval Office, and he's going to immediately sign executive orders to go back to the effective Trump policies like remain in Mexico, allow us again to build the wall at the southern border, and then end catch and release. And that's the perfect Trump formula to begin the process to secure the border.

[12:20:00]

What's different about this time from last time is he's going to have backup in the Congress to support him to do it. And we will -- we will give him the funding that it takes to fully build the wall to support our border patrol agents to do their important work. But it's going to start with those executive orders on day one. Joe Biden overturned all of those Trump policies on her -- his first day in office. And Donald Trump's going to immediately reverse that and go back to what we know will work.

BASH: You told the Indystar yesterday, quote, we're going to begin the process of deporting the over 15 million illegals that have come into this country under Joe Biden's watch. First of all, just to better understand what the actual policy and how to -- how it's going to be executed will be. Do you see all undocumented immigrants as sort of -- should they all be kicked out of the country?

BANKS: Well, some conservative estimates say that there are at least 15 million illegals who have come into the country on Joe Biden's watch. It's my hope that we deport every single one of them that we can. And it starts with deporting violent criminals who are in the United States, who came here illegally, who have committed violent crimes.

And I think once you do that, President Trump is committed to making that his first and top priority when it comes to mass deportation. And then -- and then also on top of that, increase the penalties on businesses who hire illegals in our country, and take away the incentive for them to be here and for them to come here. And I think many of them will leave on their own.

But this -- the mass deportation plan needs to be an immediate focus of the House and the Senate. I believe when the dust settles, we're going to have a even bigger majority in the House, still a slim majority, but a big -- a bigger majority by a couple of seats in the House. And we'll have the ability to work together in both chambers to fund the mass deportation effort to give the president the backup that he needs to make it happen. BASH: So, just to be clear. I know you say that it would be the people who are criminals first. But then ultimately, every undocumented immigrant in this country, even those who perhaps are deemed by their neighbors as contributing to society, or perhaps those who are married to American citizens or legal immigrants, that's it, children, adults, older people, they all should be gone.

BANKS: The American people spoke loud and clear on Tuesday. They gave this president and Republicans a mandate to do everything that we can. The goal should be to deport every illegal in this country that we can find.

And as I said a moment ago. If you take away the incentive for them to come here in the first place by turning up the pressure on those who employ illegals, then you've taken away the incentive they're going to go back to where they came from.

So, you start with the violent criminals that America -- Americans are counting on President Trump and Republicans to send them back to reduce violent crime in this country. But I think the goal has to be in the American people expect it to be to deport those who came here illegally.

BASH: And how does that work? I mean that's a huge undertaking. How does that even actually work realistic?

BANKS: No doubt about it. President Trump said yesterday that it could be costly, but we -- but the American people deserve it to do, to do everything we can do to return sanity by to this country --

BASH: Forgive me, but aside from the money -- the money is one thing. But I'm talking about like, how do -- how does it work? If you just pick Indiana, for example, how do you want the federal government to go about finding people and physically getting them out of the country.

BANKS: I don't think this is that complicated. I spoke with a local sheriff in Indiana earlier today, who's ready. Local law enforcement is ready to go to do what it takes to help with the mass deportation effort.

But if you take away those incentives from business and put pressure on businesses who hire illegals in this country, then many of these, maybe most of those who are here illegally are going to go back on their own.

And that's what Donald Trump and Republicans in the House and the Senate are focused on. I think it begins with deporting violent criminals. It's not that hard to find them. And if you take away the incentive, many of them will go back to where they came from.

BASH: Well, on the incentive, I do want to ask you about that. Because you know that you will get some push back by people in your own party who are sort of business minded Republicans, who will say, we need these people. They are workers that really fuel our businesses. And then aside from business, just even taking agriculture as an example. I want to read a quote from Michael Marsh, President and CEO of the National Council of Agriculture Employees. He says, from an employer standpoint, you're very concerned when you hear somebody talk about deporting a significant amount of the existing workforce. What do you say to him and others who really do rely -- even hospitality, who rely on these undocumented migrants?

[12:25:00]

BANKS: A mandate is a mandate. And the president winning the popular vote on Tuesday is a strong signal that this is what the American people, the public, expects us to do. And only Republicans who completely misread the moment, who don't understand what the mandate means. And I don't think there are very many of them left in Congress. It's a lot -- it's a bigger, it's a much different Congress makeup today than what it was in 2016 when President Trump was first elected.

You don't have Republicans in the House and the Senate who will fight back against President Trump to do what the American people want him to do, to deport illegals and to secure the border. The American people are counting on us to do it and that will be our focus.

BASH: Before I let you go, the filibuster is something that you're going to have to contend with potentially. Now that you are going to be in the U.S. Senate, not a House thing. The Republicans, of course, don't have 60 votes and will not get 60 votes after all the dust settles.

So, as long as the filibuster does remain in place, Democrats will have the ability to block legislation. Do you want to keep the filibuster, or do you believe that the Republicans should consider trying to find a way to do away with it.

BANKS: Well, remember, Democrats campaigned on doing away with the filibuster --

BASH: Right. So, what do you think?

BANKS: -- And the voters spoke loud and clear on Tuesday, we're likely to have 53, maybe 54 Republican senators. We don't need to do away with the filibuster. We should have at least three bites at the apple of a legislative process and maneuver called reconciliation, which will avoid the 60-vote rule. The Democrats use it to massively expand the federal government when they had all -- both the House and the Senate, and Joe Biden's first two years.

And Republicans are already preparing the way to use reconciliation to do things like bring down the cost of groceries, to bring energy production back to the United States, and to undo the massive expansion of the federal government and federal spending. And that will bring down inflation in our country. And reconciliation is a way to do it, to allow for a simple majority vote in the United States Senate.

BASH: So, it sounds like you're saying, no, keep the filibuster in place. BANKS: You can keep the filibuster. You use reconciliation. We could use it three times in two years, because we have three opportunities to do, and I think Republicans were ready to go. We've been preparing for this moment. That's a big difference between 2016 and 2024 as well. We're prepared. We're ready to go. Donald Trump knew he was going to win on election day. He knew it for a long time, and he's been preparing his team and Republicans in the Congress to get things done.

BASH: Senator -elect Jim Banks, thank you so much for being here. I appreciate it.

BANKS: Thank you.

BASH: And now to some breaking news on a new court filing from Special Counsel Jack Smith. He says his office is assessing how to move forward with their criminal case against Donald Trump now that he's headed back to the White House.

CNN's Katelyn Polantz is following that. Is this even a question? Can he actually move forward with this at all?

KATELYN POLANTZ, CNN SENIOR CRIME AND JUSTICE REPORTER: Well, right now he is asking the Judge Tanya Chutkan in the District Court in D.C., to wipe away all of the deadlines in the case leading up to trial that Donald Trump was headed toward. This is the beginning of the end.

Dana, this is Jack Smith now indicating to the court that he and his team at the Special Counsel's office is having those deliberations with other Justice Department leadership about what to do with this case against Donald Trump. This is the federal criminal case against Trump related to the 2020 election, the Capitol riot, obstruction of Congress, allegedly.

And what he writes in this just one paragraph to Judge Chutkan, asking to wipe away these filing deadlines. Is that the government needs time to assess this unprecedented circumstance of Trump coming back into the presidency and determine the appropriate course going forward consistent with Department of Justice policy.

The department policy has long been that a sitting president cannot be prosecuted in a criminal case while he is in office. What does that mean for the president-elect? We are going to be getting an update from Jack Smith. He says, he can do that by the beginning of December, in court, publicly, and so we will await exactly what is decided procedurally. But this really is putting this case at least on ice, if not removing it from the court system entirely.

BASH: Katelyn, thank you so much. Really important reporting. Coming up. Democrats know they need to reboot. What is that going to look like? We'll talk about it next.