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Inside Politics

Biden, Harris Mark Veterans Day At Arlington National Cemetery; Trump Expected To Name Stephen Miller As Deputy Chief Of Staff; Trump Picks Close Ally Rep. Elise Stefanik As U.N. Ambassador; Trump Says Immigration Hardliner Tom Homan Will Be "Border Czar"; Sanders Slams Dems For Not Speaking To "Angry" Working Class; Democrats Point Fingers As They Grapple With Decisive Loss; Moulton Sparks Backlash After Comments On Trans Athletes. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 11, 2024 - 12:00   ET

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

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JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: All of these actions are vital, but I'm particular proud of finally passing the PACT Act. This is the most significant law in our history -- our nation's history. About millions of veterans who were exposed to toxins, agent orange and burn pits during their military service. Pits the size of football fields that incinerated the wastes of war; tires, chemicals, batteries, jet fuel and so much more.

Pits that left too many veterans with headaches, nominist dizziness, asthma and cancer. PACT Act has already helped over 1 million veterans and their families to get the benefits they deserve. They deserve those benefits.

Today, I'm proud to announce that the VA will expand the number of cancers covered under the PACT Act. And to all veterans who served at K2 air base in new or Uzbekistan, constantly surrounded by toxins. One honor you, we want to have your back, just like we did in Asian art, just like working the rule to make sure you don't have to prove your illness as a consequence of your service, which is often too hard to do.

God willing, we'll make sure that any rare condition you've developed is covered. We're committed to getting this rule in place by the end of my term. Folks, this matters. Too many nations veterans have served only to return home to suffer from permanent effects of poisonous chemicals. Too many have died like our son Beau and start like Sergeant First Class Heath Robinson from the Pact Act was named.

Couple years ago, after I signed the PACT Act, I handed a pen to his daughter, really. She and her mom are with us today. I don't know where you are, but God love you. There they are. Stand up ladies.

Give him a word. I mean this I'll never forget. After I handed the signing pen that beautiful young lady who lost her whole world. She held the pen in her hand, and she looked at me, she said, thank you. Thank you for my daddy. God love you, honey. But I don't think she was just thanking me. She was thanking all of you here, all of us, everyone who fought hard and came together to keep our promise to our veterans, to keep the faith.

My fellow Americans, we stand here today. We think about all that our veterans have given to our nation, serving and sacrificing in uniform, yesterday serve and sacrifice here at home, as educators, firefighters, law enforcement officer, construction workers, entrepreneurs, business leaders, doctors, nurses, elected leaders, and so much more.

Just as routinely, they routinely put aside differences, work together. This is the moment. This is the moment to come together as a nation. Keep faith in each other. The world is dependent on each of you and all of us, all of you. Keep honoring the women and the men and the families who have borne the battle to keep protecting everything they fought for. Keep striving to heal our nation's wounds. Keep perfecting our union.

We're the only nation in the world, build on an idea. Every other nation is based on things like geography, ethnicity, religion. We're the only nation, the only in the world build on an idea, that ideas were all created equal. Deserve to create it equal throughout our lives.

We haven't lived up to it every time. We've never walked away from it. Even when it's hard, especially when it's hard. And today, standing together to honor those Americans of dared all, risk all and given all to our nation, must say clearly, we never will give up.

God bless our veterans and their families. May God protect our troops today and always. God love you. Thank you so much.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: President Biden speaking at Arlington National Cemetery, giving his final remarks on Veterans Day, as he pays tribute to those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. But more importantly, on Veterans Day, those who serve in any capacity, whether or not they gave the ultimate sacrifice, and he's there with Kamala Harris, the Vice President, the first time we've sent them together since she lost last week to Donald Trump in the election.

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And we heard him speak about his foreign policy record, including the withdrawal from Afghanistan, which again, he defended. He also referenced, as he does so many times, when he is speaking about veterans and about the cost of war, his own son Beau, who he believes developed a brain tumor in part, maybe just because of being exposed to the burn pits while he was serving. We all want to say thank you so much to your service for everybody out there who is a veteran.

And now, we're going to turn to start with what's going to happen next here in Washington. News on the second Trump administration. Sources tell CNN, the president-elect will name Stephen Miller as White House deputy chief of staff for policy. Miller is the man behind Donald Trump's mass deportation plan. He was one of the most hardline voices in the first Trump White House. And this time around, he's set to have even more influence.

CNN's Alayna Treene broke the story from West Palm Beach. Alayna, what are you learning?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Dana. Donald Trump is expected in the coming days to announce that Stephen Miller will be serving as his deputy chief of staff for policy. And look, back in the first Trump White House, Stephen Miller was a senior adviser, but he had a lot of influence.

He also helped write a lot of Donald Trump's speeches, but he was also one of the key architects of Donald Trump's hard line immigration policies. And this time around, that has not changed. He has really been the lead architect ahead of a second Trump term for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants, and he has had a lot of influence with Donald Trump. He did back then. He does even more so.

Now, it's unclear exactly how immigration and how it is going to be run in a second Trump term. But when I talk to a lot of sources who are with Donald Trump right now on that island behind me, hunker down at Mar-a-Lago. They say a lot of what is going to be -- the decisions that are going to be made are going to be happening likely from the White House. And I think you'll see Stephen Miller have a very big say in all of that policy.

Now, I also think it's worth noting that in the years after Donald Trump had left the White House, Stephen Miller continued to be a very close ally of Donald Trump's. He actually worked outside at a legal firm at America first legal, something that Miller led where he also was the head on a lot of lawsuits against democratic policies. I think you'll also see some of that carry into his role in a second Trump term.

Now, I also just want to note some of the other big policy decisions that we have seen be made over the last 24 hours. Donald Trump announced our own Kaitlan Collins broke this first, but he announced that he is selecting Elise Stefanik. She is the number four in the House as conference chair of House Republicans to serve as his U.N. ambassador.

Stefanik has also been a very close ally of Donald Trump. She has been one of the first people to come out and support him after he announced his third bid for the White House, unclear exactly what her role will look like. As U.N. ambassador, I think they're still deciding what kind of power she will have, but she is going to have a big role in a second term.

And then he also announced that Tom Homan, the former acting director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement, is going to be a border star. So, I imagine he'll be working very closely with Miller on all immigration policy moving forward. Dana?

BASH: Alayna, thank you so much. Thanks for that great reporting and for breaking the news about Stephen Miller. Here at the table, we have some other exceptional reporters, Josh Dawsey of The Washington Post, Heidi Przybyla of POLITICO, and CNN's very own MJ Lee. Before we get started on our discussion, I just want to play a little bit of a flavor of Stephen Miller. Who he is? What he says and what he believes? (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MILLER, TRUMP SENIOR ADVISER: America is for Americans and Americans only. You have two policy objectives that you proceed with utter determination on. Seal the border, no illegals in everyone here goes out. That's very straightforward. You would establish large scale staging grounds for removal flight. So, you grab illegal immigrants and then you move them to the staging grounds, and that's what the planes are waiting for federal law enforcement to then move those illegals home. You deputize the National Guard to carry out immigration enforcement.

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BASH: I remember when Stephen Miller was a press secretary that said then Senator Jeff Sessions. And this was exactly what he would say over and over again any time he would pick up the phone and he would call. At the time he was definitely not where the party was. Now he is. And at those policies believes they are the Republican Party.

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JOSH DAWSEY, POLITICAL INVESTIGATIONS REPORTER, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah. I think Stephen Miller is pugilistic. He is a studier of all sorts of policy. I mean, when he -- in this job, it's really interesting to me. In the first Trump administration, Stephen had a kind of an amorphous job.

He would call deep into agencies. He would call into DHS. He would call into immigration agencies and give them orders. He, you know, really knew how to work the levers of a government in a way that sort of -- sort of sophisticated understanding of how to get things done.

And he often frustrated colleagues of these agencies. Even cabinet secretaries who couldn't believe that all of a sudden, they had low level employees who have been given orders directly from Stephen Miller that the administration maybe itself and I announced, but Stephen always had the ear of the president.

He often writes for the president-elect. His voices, the rallies are coming in. Stephen voice, a lot of it. He sort of understands where Trump's going to go. He says in on immigration, and really, he was one of the most influential people in the first Trump administration, behind the scenes on basically his entire immigration agenda and I think that only grows here.

BASH: And for somebody who has had people come and go, and people who were kind of dismissed, and people who were let back, some were never let back in, he has been a constant.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: A constant. And you know, I was talking to someone in the immigration advocacy world just this morning, and upon hearing this news, they said, I'm almost less interested, at least on the immigration front. On the question of who Trump is going to appoint to head up DHS, because now we know that it is going to be Stephen Miller at a top position at the White House. It's exactly what Josh was talking about here.

We know what kind of sway he has. We know how much his vision for on immigration, on mass deportation, all of these ideas have shaped the Donald Trump view of immigration. And I think it just goes to show. I mean, we have not had many appointments yet, many announcements on top positions.

The fact that this is coming quite early, that he has made up his mind, knows that he wants Stephen Miller to have this top, very important position to shape policy in the Trump White House, I think speaks volumes.

BASH: And Heidi, just in that vein, it's not just Stephen Miller. We also heard about Tom Homan, who is somebody who was an acting ICE director under the first Trump administration. And now he will be ICE plus a "border czar." Listen to what he told Fox this morning.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOM HOMAN, TRUMP ANNOUNCED AS "BORDER CZAR": I've been clear. President Trump's been clear. Public safety threats and national security threats will be the priority, because they have to be the proposed most dangerous country. So, we don't prioritize those groups, those who always have final words. Those had due process, a great taxpayer expense, and the federal judge says you must go home. And they did. They became a fugitive.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HEIDI PRZYBYLA, NATIONAL INVESTIGATIVE CORRESPONDENT, POLITICO: I think it's going to be important over the next four years to frame a lot of what we hear through perception and then reality, right? Because you just heard two different things there. Stephen Miller said, we're going to deport all of them. And Homan said, we're going to have to prioritize. So which one is it? Because there are 10 million undocumented immigrants right now, and the estimate is that it would cost $88 billion per year.

You will also need congressional approval in order to get those funds. And you already hear some of these Republicans, such as Senator Barrasso, not committing to that big ticket price. So again, many of these people are already here -- who are here are already detained. They're already in criminal proceedings. So then what population are we actually talking about and what is going to be the reality?

BASH: Well, it seems like the reality. If they have their way, is all of the above, it is a priority. I talked to Jim Jordan, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee yesterday, who said first priority is the people who are criminals, convicted criminals, and then the rest.

DAWSEY: Yeah. That's right. But it will also be curious to see if they can make the logistics of this work. I mean, I was talking to John Kelly, former chief of staff, a couple years ago. And he was describing to me, if you really were trying to do these mass deportations. How much, you know, of the federal government you'd have to grow, much money would cost to put these people potentially in camps.

I mean, this would be just such a huge operational burden. And whether they can pull that off, or not even, you know, if this is what they want to do, I'm not saying they can. I'm just saying, it would take a remarkable amount of government working together, remarkable amount of money, remarkable amount of personnel, a lot of things that are hard to do. It's hard to harness the federal government in that way, sometimes.

BASH: Federal and local law enforcement, which is what they're also saying. I just want to move on to another bit of news. Kaitlan Collins broke over the weekend, which is Elise Stefanik. She will be the new president's ambassador to the U.N. And I think that Elise Stefanik is so fascinating because the Stephen Millers of the world were, you know, ride or die from the beginning, not Elise Stefanik.

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She is to me, the ultimate example of the shift in the GOP. She worked for the Bush White House. She worked for Mitt Romney in 2012. She was elected in 2014 as a moderate. She didn't even vote for the Trump tax cuts. She became a Trump defender after the first impeachment, started raising all of that money, saw kind of what it did and what it meant for her profile in the course Trump Republican Party, and she never looked back.

LEE: Yeah. I mean, there are so many Republicans who have gone through this political evolution during the Trump years, going from a Trump critic to a Trump supporter. I think you're totally right that when you talk to folks in Washington, Republicans, Democrats, friends who have known her for many years, she actually tends to fall in this really unique category.

I mean, people are stunned when they think about her, sort of arc of evolution politically, not just going from a staunch critic, but one of the most-staunchest supporters of Donald Trump on all of the issues. And I think this appointment and this choice probably goes to show you. I mean, this is exactly what she had in mind. She wanted to ride the Trump wave.

She also knew that it was going to be extremely helpful for her to embrace Donald Trump if she were to have any shot at staying in her seat. I think we should also just quickly talk about because of the position we are talking about, her views on the United Nations. She has called the group antisemitic throughout the course of the Israel war. She was also questioned whether the U.S. should continue funding it. So, there are actually real foreign policy questions at play here for this really important role.

BASH: Real quick.

PRZYBYLA: I think it's important to look at the pattern here of who is being appointed. This is very different than the first Trump administration, where you had a lot of institutional Republicans there who were supposed to be the guardrails. This is unabashedly a bench of Trump loyalists.

BASH: So, so important. Everybody standby. Coming up. Democrats are dealing with an identity crisis fighting, fighting over the very culture wars that some may have cost. They believe that they may have cost him the election. Plus, how did Trump pull off this decisive win? His campaign's political director is my guest, this hour.

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BASH: President Biden and Vice President Harris appeared together in public for the first time since the election. There you see them at Arlington National Cemetery to mark Veterans Day. This comes as Democrats have been doing a lot of soul searching since Harris's loss last week. I spoke with Senator Bernie Sanders yesterday on State of the Union about what went wrong.

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SEN. BERNIE SANDERS (I-VT): The working class of this country is angry, and they have a reason to be angry.

BASH: You saw the president walking a picket line. They forgave student loan debt as much as they could. You said yourself in July that he had a strong record, which you just repeated here. So, it sounds like it's not, maybe as much about policies and more about messaging and communication.

SANDERS: It's not messaging, Dana. It's a fundamental understanding of saying, look, the Biden administration has done a lot of good things period. We should all be proud of that, but it has to be put in the broad context of the reality of the American economy today. And that is when you have three people on top owning more wealth than the bottom half of American society. When you have millions and millions of people working for starvation wages, you got to speak to that reality.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: And my panel is back. MJ, you covered the Biden and then Harris campaign. I'm sure you're talking to your sources like I am about the finger pointing and the hand wringing. What's kind of the biggest takeaway you've gotten?

LEE: Yeah. I mean, I can't underscore enough the really dark place that Democrats are in right now as they are trying to take stock of what happened last week. I think the questions that they're asking at this point are not, what went wrong, but did we actually do anything right? I will say, on the economy, and the great interview with Senator Sanders that you conducted, that is probably one of the biggest ones, and it goes back to Joe Biden and his campaign.

There is so much anger at the way that he insisted from the beginning on talking about the data, trying to point to data that shows that the economy, you know, was on the upswing, was actually stronger than people felt. It really had the effect of making people feel like, no, no.

You don't understand. I am telling you that I feel bad about the state of things in my own family, my own wallet, my own finances, and yet Biden and his party continue to insist that I shouldn't feel that way. I mean, that had some real long lingering effect, even if Vice President Harris tried to take a different tact on that.

BASH: Yeah. That is such an important point. We can't forget that. Go ahead.

DAWSEY: But you didn't take that much of a different tact in some ways, right? I mean, one of the challenges that she had was that he was historically and popular president a lot of ways, and she didn't want to create much distance for him. I mean, if you talk to folks inside the campaign, they go back to that answer on the view, which asks, do you want anything different than Biden? Do you do anything different than Biden? She says no.

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You know, we reported a story over the weekend. Campaign advisers on multiple occasions, tried to convince her or write answers for her that would give some separation from Biden on some issues, on things that he was really unpopular for quick says, they really thought he was dragging him down. And she didn't want to do it. So, she was trying to run as change and as a future, while she was tethered --

BASH: Right, she tried to be additive, and say, here are the things I'm going to do without trashing, trashing her boss. I want to shift to a different part of this discussion that is happening in a very robust way. And Maureen Dowd, really with her headline, summed it all up, which is Democrats in the case of mistaken identity politics. Some Democrats are finally waking up and realizing that woke is broke.

PRZYBYLA: Well, look. The one thing that Bernie Sanders has been consistent about from the beginning is that his message emphasized uniting the working class across racial lines implicitly, by not emphasizing the woke politics. We all covered his campaigns, and he was constantly talking about his millionaires, laser focused on that message of who the real villains were, right?

Big pharma, big oil and the price gouging of everyday Americans. It's not that he disparaged the talking about, you know, minorities and different groups that needed to be paid attention to in the coalition is just that that wasn't his emphasis, right?

BASH: And by -- but I think by -- if you read Maureen's column, when she says, woke is broke. If I can sum it up, it's the idea that a lot of people -- the same people, maybe who you were talking about, who didn't feel economically like President Biden understood the pain they were in, feel like on a lot of issues that they are talked down to and patronized when they raise questions about some very real cultural changes in America. One of those issues Republicans used as a big-time wedge issue, which is trans and trans rights. Seth Moulton gave a quote to the New York Times, and I will read it. He said, this is a Democrat from Massachusetts, Democratic congressman. Democrats spend way too much time trying not to offend anyone rather than being brutally honest about the challenges many Americans face. I have two little girls. I don't want them getting run over on a playing field by a male or formerly male athlete, but as a Democrat, I'm supposed to be afraid to say that.

Now, after he said that, the campaign manager of his campaign resigned and said that, you know, he was upset. Other local officials said they were upset. He got skewered online. He said on CNN last night, something slightly different. I want you to listen to it

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REP. SETH MOULTON (D-MA): I stand by my position, even though I may not have used exactly the right words. And I'm willing to have this debate, as I've been having with LGBTQ advocates and others. Some of whom agree with me, and others who don't, but we're engaging in a thoughtful debate.

On the other hand, some of the people like you mentioned are just more interested in shaming fellow Democrats, shaming the majority of voters when they simply don't meet their ideological purity test.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: I spoke with him this morning, and he said that he's getting a lot of support. An email, and texts and phone calls from Democrats saying, we're glad that you spoke up. Now this is very complicated. I think, when he said, and just having spoken to him. When he said, I didn't use the right words, perhaps it was about the way Ayanna Pressley took it, which is that he's scapegoating and dehumanizing people who are going through transition, particularly when you're talking about little kids, and that's a whole totally different issue.

But the bigger picture conversation that he and others want to start is, how do we have a progressive agenda without people feeling like they are alienated if they don't fully understand sort of the new society that we are in and that those people -- trans people, should have rights.

LEE: Yeah. And I've spoken with a number of Democrats who have essentially said, post-election, we have got to find a way to talk about this issue with sensitivity, but in a way that doesn't result in us constantly raking members of our own party over the coals.

If we feel that they are not exactly talking about these issues in the right way. People just wondering, when did we become totally orthodox on these issues, that there's no room for forgiveness. That it ends up taking over everything.

I mean, just the previous conversation about the economy, that at the end of the day, in the big picture, they feel like there are not as many people who are going to vote on these issues, by the way, then the issue about the economy. For example, there's a lot of frustration about this.

BASH: OK, everybody standby. Coming up. Who is the heir to Mitch McConnell's throne? MAGA nation has an idea, establishment Republicans in the Senate may have another.