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President Biden, President-Elect Trump Meet at White House; Senator John Thune Elected New Senate GOP Leader; MAGA Favorite Rick Scott Loses GOP Leadership Race in First Round; McConnell Deputy John Thune Elected New Senate GOP Leader; Biden Promises "Smooth Transition", Trump "Politics is Tough". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 13, 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]

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DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Welcome to "Inside Politics". I'm Dana Bash in Washington, where we are following breaking news up and down Pennsylvania Avenue. First Donald Trump is, as we speak, in the White House. Less than four years ago, we remember. He left in disgrace, a political pariah. Today, he is back there as President- Elect. At this moment, he is meeting face to face with the current President, Joe Biden.

CNN's Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes and MJ Lee. Our all-star cast are at the White House. We're going to get back to you three in one moment. We want to go down Pennsylvania Avenue first to Capitol Hill, because Senate Republicans are behind closed doors trying to elect a new leader. And we have a bit of news that just came out of that meeting. Manu, what can you tell us?

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, that's right. The Senate Republicans are getting closer to naming the person who will lead their conference into the future. We have now learned that this three-person race, one of the Senators is now out. The person who was out, Senator Rick Scott, he came in third in the first ballot of voting.

Just had -- that happening behind closed doors just moments ago. It is now down to two men, the current Senate Republican Whip, John Thune, and also the Former Republican Whip John Cornyn. And now this will be a secret ballot election.

A majority of the 47 -- the 53 members who are voting will be -- will -- whoever gets that majority threshold in this second round of balloting, if they get there, they will be the next majority leader. The first time Senate Republicans will have picked someone in 18 years, Mitch McConnell, of course, stepping aside being the longest Senate Leader in history.

Now it is up to the Republicans to fix who will now lead them into the future, to devise their strategy, determine what bills to put on the floor and work with Donald Trump was coming into the White House, of course, in January, then that first ballot of voting, it went down. Thune -- John Thune got 23 votes. John Cornyn got 15 votes, and Rick Scott got 13 votes, the lowest person drops off now down to Thune and Cornyn.

BASH: Manu, thank you so much for that. I mean, pretty remarkable that Rick Scott, who had the backing and was being had the lobbying of a lot of people in Donald Trump's orbit, not Trump himself, is out in the first round. We're going to talk about that in a minute, but want to get straight back to what is happening right now at the White House, President Biden, President-Elect Trump, spoke to reporters in the last hour as their meeting began watch this.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Well, Mr. President-Elect, Former President. Thank you, Donald, Congratulations.

DONALD TRUMP (R), FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT AND CURRENT PRESIDENTIAL- ELECT: Thank you.

BIDEN: And looking forward to having, like they said, smooth transition, do everything we can to make sure accommodating what you need. We're going to get chance to talk to us on that today. Welcome.

TRUMP: Thank you very much. And politics is tough, and its many cases, not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today, and I appreciate very much a transition that's so smooth it'll be as smooth as it can get. And I very much appreciate that, Joe.

BIDEN: You're welcome. Thank you all.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Brief but extraordinary. Let's go back to the White House, to Kaitlan, Kirsten and MJ. Kaitlan, we have both covered them for a while. Obviously, you have been covering Donald Trump, all three of you for in and out for extended periods of time, just to kind of take in that moment. For our viewers, it's one thing, but for people who really can perhaps write the thought bubbles. It's a different thing Kaitlan.

KAITLAN COLLINS, CNN ANCHOR: Yeah, it's obviously a historic meeting between the two of them. And it also really showcases more about Biden's intentions here Dana, then Trump's really. Trump is obviously in there. It was notable to see how he deferred to Biden. It looked a lot like his meeting with Obama that happened eight years ago, where he kind of seemed wowed by the Oval Office as he was sitting there.

He was very generous to him, not like how we had seen on the campaign trail, how he talked about him, or how he talked about him shortly after, when he accused him of spying on his campaign to see that moment, obviously between Biden and Trump now says a lot, given their disputes on the campaign trail, a very acrimonious campaign between the two of them, until Biden dropped out of the race earlier this summer, and to see Biden tell you know Trump, welcome back to the Oval Office.

[12:05:00] As he's intent on committing to a peaceful transition of power, something that Trump fought him on when Biden won the election rightfully four years ago. And this meeting has been going on, Dana, I should say, for almost an hour now, based on what we know from when the reporters went into the Oval Office.

Later on, Biden's Chief of Staff, Jeff Zients, and Trump's incoming Chief of Staff, Susie Wiles, joined the meeting. The last we know is that they are still in that meeting. So, it is the four of them in the Oval Office having this moment, talking about what's going to happen 68 days from now, which is this transfer of power from Biden to Trump, something that will obviously be historic in and of itself.

And of course, they have talked about the foreign policy issues from the Biden team, saying that was going to be a big point of discussion, given its Trump and Biden, and you have been covering both of them, you never really know what they're going to talk about when the two of them are in the room together.

They both -- you know choose their own paths there on that. But it is a moment in and of itself, just to witness this that we did not see and that was taken for granted, obviously, four years ago, when Trump did not facilitate it.

BASH: Yeah, and MJ, one of our colleagues joked with me just a short while ago that that fire raging behind them is an unpaid actor in that --in that scene, because the metaphor is, is kind of jumping off the screen.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah, I'm trying to figure out which camera to look at here, Dana, just so that. Yeah -- you know what is interesting about the moment that we saw briefly in the Oval Office is just hearing President Biden say the words, welcome back to a man who he does not want to be welcoming back to the White House.

Obviously, ran for a second term believing that he could defeat Donald Trump. We reported on that at the time, and in fact, reported that even leading up to Election Day, when it was his vice president that was now running against Trump. He believed that he could do this. The mood here has been -- it's been frenzied. It's been emotional. I've talked to White House staff who have said, basically, this is a tough day, but they want to be taking their cues from -- who has made so clear.

BASH: MJ I'm just going to jump in. I apologize. We're going to get back to you. We want to go back down to the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue once again, because we have breaking news on the Senate Republican Leader race. It is John Thune. John Thune of South Dakota, Manu, take it away.

RAJU: Yeah, Senate, the new Senate Majority Leader Senator John Thune, elected first in 2004 has worked his way up the rungs of Republican leadership has been a Committee Chairman who is now the current Republican Whip, has now ascended from the number two spot to the number one. He will be the Republican leader -- the majority leader -- the person

who is in charge of setting the agenda on the floor the Senate, one of the most consequential jobs and Washington will have to work with the incoming Republican White House and incoming Republican President to get this agenda through.

Now, this vote just wrapped behind closed doors. According to multiple sources, that John Thune edged out John Cornyn on a vote of 29 to 24. Cornyn was a Former Republican Whip, a two-time member of the Senate, GOP campaign chairman. This campaign had taken shape behind the scenes for about nine months in the aftermath of Mitch McConnell making that decision not to run again for Republican Leader.

McConnell has dominated the Senate GOP for 18 years, the longest serving Senate party leader in history, but decided it was time for him to step aside, and now we're seeing a new generation of source. John Thune is 63-years-old. He has served in the Senate since 2005.

His politics are much more in the mainstream of GOP orthodox. You have to figure out a way to work with Donald Trump. Sometimes they have not always been in line. In fact, in the aftermath of that Access Hollywood Tape in 2016 he called on Trump to step -- drop out of the presidential race. In the aftermath of the 2020 election.

He thought the election should not be overturned. He criticized Donald Trump as well and supported Tim Scott as for in the Republican presidential primary. But Thune, over the last several months, has endorsed Donald Trump. Has gone on the Trump train of sorts. They've been in frequent communication.

I've told at least he and his team over the last several months to try to bolster that relationship, and Trump himself decided to stay neutral in this race, perhaps recognizing that even though Thune may not be in line with some of the others who are running, particularly Senator Rick Scott, who lost in the first round of balloting that decided that to stay out, because this race could have gone any which way.

And oftentimes Dana, as you know, these races come down to relationships. They come down to commitments they have made to these members, committee assignments that they made, promise fundraising and the like. So, there are lots of different reasons for people to vote a certain way, but this momentous decision by the Senate GOP picking John Thune as the next Republican Leader, the Majority Leader, someone who will decide the party's strategy for the years ahead, Dana.

BASH: Yeah, really, really interesting development also Manu only in the United States Senate is 63 the young generation. Thank you so much for that. Appreciate it.

RAJU: Right.

[12:10:00]

BASH: With me to discuss all of this breaking news. CNN's Jeff Zeleny, The Washington Post, Lee Ann Caldwell and CNN's Phil Mattingly. Lucky to have people who have spent a lot of time walking those halls. And the fact that it's Thune, the fact that it is, I'll start with you Phil Mattingly that he is somebody who is Mitch McConnell's deputy.

Mitch McConnell kind of notoriously kept his own counsel. And it's not necessarily true that, like I would call John Thune his protege, but he certainly was somebody who was the number two to McConnell for several years. And as Manu just said, not historically, a Trump fan all the time.

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN CHIEF DOMESTIC CORRESPONDENT: Look the Senate Republican Conference of 2024 is very different than the Senate Republican Conference of 2017 when Donald Trump last came to Washington. It is much more MAGA. It is much more Trump acolytes. It is many more people who owe Trump at least some credit for their seats.

John Thune is not one of them, and that doesn't mean he doesn't support Trump, particularly you think about the policy issues that Trump wants to focus on in the start of this term. On tax policy Thune is always a player on tax policy, back from 2017 rewrite. On immigration they're aligned.

But he is not an accolade, and he is not somebody who came up or owes Donald Trump his career or his pathway to Washington. I think what's most telling about this is we all try and get our heads around what Trump's Washington is now, and what it will look like in a couple of months is secret ballots matter, and the Senate is still the Senate.

Now, the Senate is different than 2017 in terms of the makeup of the Senate Republican Conference. But it is still a chamber that appreciates its independence. It is still a place where there are a lot of lawmakers, and you and all of us can name probably 8 to 10 off the top of our heads, even in the Republican Conference, who you get cross wise with them, or their committees or their legislative priorities.

And there are going to be issues. And I think the import of this moment is where the House, as we saw this morning, is going to be very much I think it was Troy Niels who said, If Donald Trump tells us to jump, we say how high and then keep waiting for more instructions. The Senate is not going to be as compliant, necessarily, and it's going to be a really important working relationship to develop in the months ahead.

BASH: Jeff, I spoke with a Senate Republican this morning who said that the phone in his office was ringing off the hook with people who are listening to Tucker Carlson and saying, do not vote for the RINOs John Cornyn or John Thune because they had deigned to in some way, shape or form, certainly more of Thune than Cornyn criticized Donald Trump at various times over the years.

And the fact that John Thune won, and Rick Scott in particular, who was the favorite of Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk and all the people who have been hanging out at Mar-a-Lago, even if it's not Trump himself, only got 13 votes in that secret ballot. What does that tell you? JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: It's a reminder, as Phil was saying, that the Senate is probably the last place that still has some vestiges of the past where personal relationships matter where there is more of a sense of a decorum and people are not following the rules and instructions of what folks online are saying.

And it backfired. I was talking to a Republican adviser yesterday who said that his boss was furious at the fact that there was this online sort of outrage telling them who to vote for the majority leader position. John Thine has very deep relationships. This was a vote for John Thune. This was not a vote against Rick Scott.

This was a vote for John Thune. And I'm thinking back to a conversation I had with him the Friday before the election. He was in Wisconsin. He had been on the road all week. He was campaigning all week, and obviously they lost that Wisconsin seat. But he has personal relationships with all the people he ran with.

But he's probably the least Trumpy of all of them, and he's much more in the mold of Mitch McConnell. Now he has a very tough job ahead of him, now, dealing with the White House and the White House and the very slim Republican majority in the House.

BASH: Kind of ironic that he is going to be the Senate Majority Leader. I remember covering the Hill when he, as a House member, ran against the then Senate Democratic Leader, Tom Daschle -

ZELENY: Right.

BASH: -- and beat him, and that was a really big deal, and now he's -

ZELENY: Now -

(CROSSTALK)

BASH: -- taking that very job.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, CO-AUTHOR, THE WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF": Yeah, it was a huge deal. Also, the reason Senator Thune ran for re- election two years ago is because of the possibility that he was going to be Senate Republican Leader. He did not want to run for re- election.

He was worried about Trump's influence in a Republican primary, and so this is good news for John Thune. Personally, I'm sure he's happy, because he did decide to run for re-election, and it wasn't for naught.

[12:15:00]

But you know, Senators also remember Rick Scott, and they are still very angry about how he ran the NRSC in 2022 they did not win back the majority, and that's a big reason why Rick Scott is not the most popular Senator, despite what the MAGA crowd was thinking. And so, I think the most important thing that you said is it was a secret ballot.

I am very skeptical that they are going to buck Trump and MAGA on anything that is public. But for now, they don't have to tell anyone their votes.

MATTINGLY: One that's critical. And just one other quick thing. Trump stayed out of this. He did not. His minions and supporters and allies and Elon Musk all jumped in and tried to shape this one way or the other. Trump did not. And that, I think, I don't know the rationale, but it shows a level of understanding in terms of where this may have gone, or the fact he might have been on the losing end if he went against Thune. That is a different level of understanding of this place that he had in Senate.

BASH: Yeah, I was told this morning he didn't want it to blow up in his face. And yeah, he was right. Coming up, Joe Biden and Donald Trump are still meeting behind closed doors at the White House. We're going to take you back there next.

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[12:20:00]

BASH: Donald Trump and Joe Biden have been right there in that very famous building meeting for more than an hour at this point, I want to go back to the White House. Kaitlan Collins, Kristen Holmes and MJ Lee are standing by. MJ, I so rudely interrupted you with the news of John Thune. I want you to continue and then, Kristen, we haven't had a chance to hear from you as well.

LEE: Well, Dana -- you know this meeting, the fact that it's been going on for over an hour, I think we're all having the same thought of wishing that we could be a fly on the wall. We actually did just get word that the two people who are able to play that role right now are Susie Wiles and Jeff Zients, the two respective Chiefs of Staff for President Trump and President Biden.

The fact that they have been in this room behind closed doors, just the two of them, plus the two other aides for this long just makes you wonder, what kinds of things could they possibly be talking about. We know from President Biden's side that there were a number of domestic and foreign policy issues that he hoped to talk to his predecessor.

Now the incoming president, about, including an issue like Ukraine. But you have to wonder whether President Biden, going into this, thinks that he has any shot at convincing President Trump to see things more in the ways in which he sees the world, because their two world views could not possibly be any different.

Just one other observation I will make. We're obviously here at the White House, but the fact that you've been having to go back and forth between here and Capitol Hill to try to capture the real power shift moment that is coming to Washington, D.C. I think that is really fascinating.

And one thing that is fueling this power shift that is coming in a different way this time around is this idea of the popular vote and the idea that Donald Trump this time around, unlike the last time, when he won, won the popular vote, he no longer has sort of this lingering idea among his opponents.

People who didn't support him, that he is coming to the White House as president, even though the majority of the country doesn't support him. And in addition to that, he is buoyed by the fact that so many Republicans across the party now see it as sort of the establishment view to support him that is very, very different than the last time around.

BASH: Kristen?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, I think one of the most interesting things that we've been talking about is the fact that this is just a completely different Washington that we're seeing now than we saw the last time he came in 2017.

He had controlled the Senate. Then he had control of the House then. But one thing that is very different is the fact that he has allies in both the Senate and the House. In fact, not only allies in the House, but he is really kind of commanded the House Republicans in a way that he was absolutely not equipped to do back in 2016 and 2017.

So, this is a very different Washington. I also think the other thing to keep in mind here is that I know Kaitlan mentioned, this is how Donald Trump is acting in this meeting. I mean, we saw him land in Washington. We saw him not take questions from the press. The fact that he came here, he sat down across from Joe Biden when the press was shouting questions at him.

He did not take any questions there, either. He was deferring to President Joe Biden. This is clearly trying to set a tone. Now Donald Trump, of course, can completely undo everything that he has done in the last afternoon, but he is trying to set the tone here overall, for what this transition is likely to look like.

And he agreed with Biden this is going to be a smooth transition. And we cannot stress enough like two things. One, this is the beginning of the peaceful transition of power. This is a very important moment in this transition, despite all the names floating around all the kind of jockeying horse race, this is the moment where we see how Washington is shifting and how Donald Trump is going to enter into this presidency. So, we could not be clearer about that, Dana.

BASH: Kaitlan?

COLLINS: Yeah, well, and on, John Thune -- you know, looking at this and how Trump's team is viewing this. I mean, Trump's team has been watching very closely what's been happening, happening behind -- you know, the scenes with this, and also -- you know, very publicly on social media. They never thought ultimately that Senator Rick Scott was going to be successful. Here I was just in Palm Beach. I got back this morning; I was talking to people about what was going on with this race.

[12:25:00]

And as it was shaking out, they were just pushing for him publicly, ranging from Elon Musk to other Trump aides. But also, one thing they were doing is highlighting John Thune's past criticisms of Donald Trump. Now they were going back eight years to do so, when Dan Scavino at once, was highlighting after the Access Hollywood Tape came out in 2016.

John Thune said that Trump should drop from the ticket and resign, and that Mike Pence should be the Republican nominee in that race. And Dan Scavino, one of Trump's closest and most trusted aides, was highlighting that and tagging Donald Trump in it on Twitter.

So, they certainly have not forgotten his past criticisms. And another thing that they were doing is looking at when these three Republicans were up for re-election, because obviously that could depend on how willing they are to buck Trump when he's back in office and when they are running the Republican majority on Capitol Hill in the Senate and looking at that.

And John Thune, of course, was just re-elected two years ago. His term is not up until 2028 so that is something that the Trump team was looking at. Because Kristen is right that, yes, Republicans were technically in power when Trump came in office the last time. Now it is Trump Republicans who are going to be in power.

And it has just shifted the dynamic of what that relationship is going to look like. Trump himself also is much more familiar with the inner workings of Capitol Hill than he ever was in 2016 when he first took office.

HOLMES: And I just want to say one thing to that, because I think it's really interesting. He didn't weigh in on Rick Scott, even though he had all of these people, the MAGA contingency, fighting for him to say something, trying to get him to endorse Rick Scott -

COLLINS: He clearly -

HOLMES: -- exactly. And instead, he waited to see how it was going to play out, knowing it was a secret vote, knowing that Rick Scott could lose, and understanding that whoever the winner was, he was going to have to work with. Seems as though Donald Trump might have learned a lesson from what we saw in 2022 and what we saw really throughout his presidency in terms of weighing in, and what that means.

Overall, because he could have endorsed a loser in this case, and then he would be going in, have to work with Thune in a different way. Instead, he stayed out of the race altogether.

BASH: Yeah, he did. But as you've been saying, he certainly did not try to stop people who are hanging out at Mar-a-Lago with him, from Tucker Carlson to Elon Musk, from doing -- from doing exactly that. I also just want to add that on the other side of the Capitol, Mike Johnson met with and the entire House Republican Conference this morning. And I am told that Trump made very clear that he believes that Mike Johnson should stay in his job. Very much a Trump supporter Mike Johnson, of course. Guys, thank you don't go too far. We're waiting to see when and if that that meeting wraps up. Coming up, everyone is simply shocked that is how a defense official describes the reaction to Trump picking a Fox News post to lead the Pentagon. We'll tell you why so many are concerned. That's next.

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