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Inside Politics

Trump Picks Ex-Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi To Lead DOJ; Gaetz Talks About Reasons Behind Withdrawal; Gaetz Says He's Not Rejoining Congress Next Year; The Dispatch: Donald Trump Is Bringing The Sunshine State To D.C.; Sources: Trump May Fire FBI Director, Install Allies At The Top; Top Trump Aide Says Ex-Rep. Mike Rogers Won't Be FBI Chief; Patel: BFI Building Should Become " Mausoleum Of The Deep State". Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 22, 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: Today on INSIDE POLITICS, switching it up. President-elect Trump has a new pick for attorney general, but his plan to overhaul the Justice Department remains the same. We've got all the latest news from Mar-a-Lago.

Plus, on a knife's edge. With three House races still uncalled, the Republican majority could be one of the smallest ever, maybe just two seats. We'll look at the challenges ahead for House Speaker Mike Johnson and what it means for the Trump agenda.

And I'll speak with Democratic governor, one of them who is praising Donald Trump's choice of Robert Kennedy Jr. to run Health and Human Services. Colorado's Jared Polis is here to explain what he sees in one of Trump's most controversial picks.

I'm Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at INSIDE POLITICS.

Two weeks since winning back the White House, we learned something very important about Donald Trump yesterday. He does respond to political pressure and understands how to count votes. So instead of threatening senators who opposed Matt Gaetz as attorney general, Trump cast him aside and replaced him with someone no less loyal, but a bit less political.

And when it comes to baggage, a lot less personal baggage, former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, she's a long time Trump ally who was part of his legal team and his first impeachment and then helped spread his election fraud lies when he lost in 2020.

CNN's Kristen Holmes joins us now, once again from Palm Beach. Kristen, what are you hearing from your sources?

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. The big question, of course, is, is Pam Bondi confirmable? And I have heard from a number of Republicans who say they believe she is. Now Donald Trump chose her because she has been a loyalist, and she has spoken out against the Department of Justice.

As it stands, you talk a lot about some of the things Matt Gaetz has said, but Pam Bondi has said very similar. I want you to take a listen to at least one thing that she has said about the Department of Justice.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PAM BONDI, FORMER FLORIDA ATTORNEY GENERAL: So, will be prosecuted, the bad ones. The investigators will be investigated because the deep state last term for President Trump, they were hiding in the shadows. But now they have a spotlight on them, and they can all be investigated, and the House needs to be cleaned out.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So, she clearly stands by what Matt Gaetz, what Donald Trump have all said about essentially blowing up the Department of Justice and starting from scratch. That's part of the reason why Donald Trump chose her. He also chose her because she has been nothing but loyal to him.

As you noted, she was by his side. She represented him during that first impeachment. She also took over his Super PAC when there were issues there, so she has always stepped in at this moment.

But again, I've heard from a number of Republicans who believe, while she might have some of the same beliefs as Matt Gaetz and Donald Trump, she's much more confirmable, because as you said, she doesn't have that baggage.

BASH: And Kristen, we heard from Matt Gaetz in the last hour. What did he say?

HOLMES: Well, one, he said for the first time, officially that he would not be rejoining Congress. This, of course, comes as we know, there is still a debate over the release of that ethics report. But he also said this about his meeting with senators when he was still in the running and still nominated to be attorney general.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MATT GAETZ (R), U.S. REPRESENTATIVE-ELECT: While our discussions were going well. I found myself having to do two jobs at one time, Charlie, and you got a front row seat to this. I had a fulltime job, explaining to senators that maybe a tweet I said about them was rash and not reflective of how I would serve as attorney general.

And at the same time, I was having to build out the Department of Justice with the right human talent, the right policy infrastructure, and Pam Bondi's confirmation won't have some of the sharp edges that Manu would have.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

HOLMES: So clearly Matt Gaetz and some of those meetings had to define -- had to defend some of the more polarizing things he said. In addition to, as we know, this growing concern among Trump's orbit that more damning evidence was inside of that ethics report, that some of that was going to come out and hurt his chances.

Even more, I had heard from one source on Capitol Hill, essentially saying they believe there were so many hard-nosed already that was before they had heard any new information out of the ethics report that it would seem impossible that Matt Gaetz was going to actually get to be confirmed. As you noted, this was a moment for Donald Trump. He also had heard this and told Matt Gaetz he just simply did not have the vote before Matt Gaetz decided to withdraw his name.

[12:05:00]

BASH: All right, Kristen. Thank you so much for that reporting. I want to bring in another exceptional group of reporters here, Zolan Kanno- Youngs of The New York Times, CNN's Lauren Fox, Nia-Malika Henderson of CNN and Bloomberg, and Michael Warren, senior editor of The Dispatch. Happy Friday to all who celebrate.

Lauren, I want to start with you, because that Matt Gaetz clip is so telling the fact that he just openly admitted that in these meetings that you were following him around -- going to over the past few days. He had to confront the fact that he really pissed off a lot of these fellow Republicans in various ways over many years because of his combative style.

LAUREN FOX, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Put aside the fact that senators always feel as though they are superior to the House of Representatives. That is a dynamic that exists across Capitol Hill. The reality is in these meetings, senators were doing two things. They were trying to educate him about what this process was going to look like, all of the baggage that was going to come out.

You heard John Cornyn say very publicly, there will be no secrets here. You also -- I had some reporting yesterday that in one of the meetings that a source was in, that a senator actually wanted to know, what do you think your whip count is? The team did not have an answer.

Then the senator wanted to go member by member of the Senate Judiciary Committee to walk through what Matt Gaetz had been told by each of them. And at the end, the source told me there were at least five people who had given him some -- we believe in you. We're with you. Answer, but not a confirmed yes. We will vote for you. And that just lays out how difficult this was. That was just on the Judiciary Committee.

BASH: That's really, really interesting. And let's hear a little bit more from what Matt Gaetz said this morning. This about his nemesis, Kevin McCarthy.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GAETZ: I was dealing with a politically motivated body. They didn't like me because of what I did to Kevin McCarthy. All of them were hand-picked by Kevin McCarthy, and they had an accident crime. So, that was going to serve as at least enough of a basis to delay my confirmation as attorney general. And I could have answered all those questions. I could have engaged in a months' long fact battle, but we don't have months to go through that. We got to have an A.G. ready to go day one.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Obviously, the Senate is not hand-picked by Kevin McCarthy. I think he was referring to the people who he was serving with in the House. And when it comes to access to grind, I think Kevin McCarthy would argue that being ousted as Speaker of the House by Matt Gaetz, that the axe is maybe being held by somebody else.

MICHAEL WARREN, SENIOR EDITOR, THE DISPATCH: Look, everybody on Capitol Hill had an axe to grind with Matt Gaetz is the problem, whether it's the House Ethics Committee or Kevin McCarthy allies or senators. It's interesting that that Matt Gaetz sort of went back to that the establishment is against me.

When he had just laid out in the previous clip how -- there were all it was like a death of thousand cuts. He had said something or done something to anger, just about everybody who could be a potential ally in a tough fight.

So, were the Ethics committee allegations, the things that were going to come out in this report a real problem for him, yes, but I agree. I think the reporting is very solid all around that was a lot more than just a handful of senators, just the -- you know, the four that would have blocked him from getting confirmed.

There was a lot of senators, including, I hear senators who publicly were saying maybe nice things about Matt Gaetz, and a way to sort of say, we like the pick from Donald Trump. We have some questions. Those people were even some heart now.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE NEW YORK TIMES & CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is why I find it, like in this moment, can we really say that now the Senate is going to be a guardrail against the president-elect, right? Because we're talking about in Matt Gaetz, somebody who was one of the -- if not the most unpopular Republicans in Congress amongst his own party.

So, the fact that this was blocked, it's tough to say at this point whether or not -- you know, whether the Senate now will actually, you know, establish sort of a check on the president.

WARREN: This was the easiest to push us out.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yeah, that's right.

NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: But it is a misreading on Trump's part, right? He put Matt Gaetz up there. He presumably thought he had a shot, maybe he thought he could sneak him in there with a recess appointment. And folks on the Senate side don't seem to be too willing to grant him that. So, you know, this is a pick that Trump thought through his power through what he sees as a mandate, right? I don't really necessarily think it was a mandate, but he thought through his sheer power, he could blow past the anger that people had at Matt Gaetz, and he was very, very wrong. And I think most people, when they saw Matt Gaetz, they said, this is never ever, ever going to happen. But somehow Trump thought differently.

[12:10:00]

BASH: I want to listen just to the point that you were talking about with regard to whether Gaetz is a canary in the coal mine. I agree with you. I do not think. I think Matt Gaetz is his own issue and had -- and comes with his own, I mean, not just baggage, it's like an entire steam ship of things that he had to deal with.

Listen to Steve Bannon, who has been using -- now since he got out of prison, using his podcast to gin up the MAGA base and try to send messages to team Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEVE BANNON, FORMER TRUMP WHITE HOUSE CHIEF STRATEGIST: In that Senate right now, they're thinking, hey, we got him. He's the bandit of these guys. They talk big, all hat, no cattle. They come up here. The first guy, the golden boy, the guy, the Gaetz, the guy. He's the lead guy, the lead tank. He's the guy. Boom, gone, suck on that. How tough are you guys? Well, we're going to prove a pretty tough. I keep saying you back off of these things. They're going to roll you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

FOX: I think that senators, one of the strategies that perhaps they're deploying right now is to not publicly go up against Trump, but to in these meetings, very privately, make clear to nominees that have potential baggage. This is going to be an issue. And just to remind you, there's a public hearing, there's questions for release, there's answers that you have to give us in writing. Everything is going to happen under oath.

Are you and your family ready to do this? And I think that that is sort of a very clever way for Republican senators to thread that needle. And so, I think the reporting around what members are telling senator or what members are telling these nominees in private meetings is so important right now.

BASH: Yeah. And do you think that regardless of Matt Gaetz being his own -- kind of his own -- a category of his own. There are other nominees, Pete Hegseth, who has some issues, and he clearly has shown that he wants to fight. But is this the kind of conversation that senators are having with him?

FOX: Absolutely. I mean, this is the kind of conversation that senators are having, and that is independent of issues that they may have on these individuals, stances on policy, on philosophy of how they're going to run these agencies, on their qualifications. That is a whole separate conversation that also is going to transpire in a very public way, and Democrats aren't going to let that stuff go either.

BASH: Yeah. I want to ask about something that you wrote about this morning. And the headline is, it's Florida time in Washington. Donald Trump is bringing the sunshine state to D.C. and back, obviously Pam Bondi, being the former attorney general of Florida is a big example. There are others as well.

WARREN: Yeah. I had actually written, you know, included Matt Gaetz, my write up, had to strike it from the copy before we went to publish. And then was able to slot Pam Bondi right in. So, it's just as my point, which, as a reporter, I love. Look, this is -- this is Florida's time as I quote, Brian Ballard, who is -- was sort of a super lobbyist in the first Trump administration.

I think he's going to be -- he's from Tallahassee. He's going to be a force to reckon with. You've got all the way from Susie Wiles, the incoming chief of staff. A lot of the senior staff in the White House, also from Susie Wiles' orbit in Florida, Marco Rubio, Mike Waltz in the national security advisory position, and Trump himself is a Florida man now, and it's through and through.

You can see it from the way the transition is coming out of Mar-a- Lago. People talk about why-- we got to hear what Palm Beach has to say. I mean, this is a Florida administration. So, you know, except for the palm trees, I think Washington is going to look a lot like Florida in a couple months.

HENDERSON: Yeah. You know, and we can expect some wild and wooly things, because we know what Florida produces. And I think, you know, kind of hold on to your hats in terms of what this next couple of months is going to look like.

You know, I think this interim period, it was usually sort of a sleepy time, but the fact that Donald Trump has nominated all of these folks who are going to have, I think must see TV confirmation hearings. If they make it that far, Matt Gaetz obviously didn't. We'll see if the others do.

KANNO-YOUNGS: The fact that you only needed to just insert Pam Bondi. Just to circle back to that, does show that Trump gets a lot of what he wanted with Gaetz in Pam Bondi, and that's a loyalist.

BASH: That's such an important point.

KANNO-YOUNGS: That somebody that will fall in line. This is somebody that has showed her loyalty, whether it was the impeachment proceedings with Trump, whether it was going to New York, and pushing back against his legal problems there as well. So, just because we're now moving away from the Gaetz era right here, you know, we still have this through line of him implementing loyalists, bring in loyalists to implement that aggressive agenda.

[12:15:00] BASH: All right, everybody standby. Up next. Donald Trump is about to completely overhaul the FBI, or is he? We have some new reporting just ahead.

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BASH: FBI directors are appointed to 10-year terms, designed to insulate them from political pressures. Our own Kaitlan Collins reported last night that Donald Trump was planning to fire the current FBI director. One that he himself nominated, and was confirmed that, of course, is Christopher Wray.

[12:20:00]

According to Kaitlan's reporting, Trump has considered one potential option, naming Mike Rogers, a former FBI special agent and former Michigan congressman to be the next FBI director, while putting Kash Patel, a controversial MAGA loyalist, in as deputy FBI director. But this morning, a top Trump aide, Dan Scavino, posted on X that he spoke to Trump, and Rogers would not get the job. Quote, I have never even given it a thought.

My excellent reporters are back here. So just to kind of square that circle, obviously, what happened is that there were people who wanted Mike Rogers, who I think there are a lot of in the parlance of Republican ease. He is maybe more of a normie, definitely not a MAGA lifer.

And people who are more of the MAGA ilk said, no, no, no. Dan Scavino, obviously is one of those people. So, he put it out publicly, trial balloon popped over. In the meantime, between those two things, Mike Rogers went on Fox. It seemed like he was doing a little bit of lobbying. Let's listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE ROGERS, FORMER GOP REPRESENTATIVE: People have lost faith in the FBI, and they don't even know it, not showing up for a Senate hearing. They think is there -- I mean, that hubris is exactly what people are seeing outside that say, I have lost faith in the FBI. Somebody like me, I can restore that faith.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: So, you would think that going on Fox and making your case for a man like Donald Trump would be a good strategy.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Yes.

BASH: Is he likes people who are good on TV. You can talk to him through the TV, particularly on that network, it didn't work.

KANNO-YOUNGS: And attack the FBI.

BASH: Right, exactly. KANNO-YOUNGS: Right. As being up -- as being political and accusing it being politicized. So, you are kind of going through the talking points that would appease -- that would please the person who would, you know, pick you for this job.

But as you know, before there's, there's a lot of competing camps, you know, and Donald Trump's orbit right now. People that want somebody that's going to be a bit more, you know, less MAGA and have sort of the establishment Republicans on their side. Even if everyone at this point, in order to gain favor with the president-elect seems to be OK with politicizing the FBI as well.

But you know, when you have so many different people going to Mar-a- Lago right now, getting in the president's ear, you know, and him sort of liking the roll out in the waiting period of these decisions. You're going to have a lot of that will be seen in what's reported as names that could possibly be floated for this position.

WARREN: I was watching Steve Bannon war room this morning, and he opened the show with that clip of Rogers from Fox and spent the first like 10 or 15 minutes talking about this nomination. So, this --

BASH: Talking about it how so?

WARREN: Talking about it as if it's not good, it's not who -- it's not who the team MAGA would like. They would like Kash Patel to be the FBI director. And so, I heard a lot of push back from Bannon, talking about this is Rupert Murdoch, you know, in his network trying to push Mike Rogers.

So, those kinds of competing factions that's playing out in this nomination in particular, it's going to be playing out over the next couple of weeks and months. They're trying to win, and it's kind of a war of attrition.

Can you get a little bit farther on your direction? Or will the establishment, or the Murdoch establishment, as Bannon calls it, will they win? I think the Bannon side of things feels like, they're a little bit back on their heels about Gaetz and they're coming for FBI with avengers.

BASH: Yeah. I want you to jump in, but I just want to underscore something that I said opening the segment. This is not normal. The FBI director is a 10-year appointment. It's confirmed for 10 years intentionally to shield the director from politics. Chris Wray, the current FBI director, was named by Donald Trump himself.

Now, obviously, in the interim, little things like a raid on Mar-a- Lago have happened because a judge said, yes, this should happen because they believe that he was keeping classified information in Mar-a-Lago, which it turns out he was, because they found it.

But things like that have allowed the pre-disposed view of people like Bannon and Dan Scavino and others, who say that the FBI is a bunch of jackbooted thugs to come to the fore. And that's why they're seriously considering -- Donald Trump is seriously considering replacing him. HENDERSON: Yeah. I mean, Donald Trump wants somebody in these positions, and all these positions, whether it's DOJ or the FBI. He wants someone who is absolutely loyal to him, not the constitution, not the law, not the American people, not whatever FBI protocols exist, the DOJ protocols exist. He wants someone who quite possibly could be willing to break the law for him. I mean, that is just what is the facts here.

[12:25:00]

And so, somebody like Mike Rogers, he's too much of a boy scout, right? I mean, he obviously lost the Senate race in Michigan. He can plea all he wants on Fox News. But because he likely would be somebody who would follow the law, follow the constitution, not pledge loyalty to Donald Trump. He is not going to be on the radar of this president- elect.

BASH: I think you mentioned Kash Patel. One of you guys mentioned Kash Patel, who is definitely the sort of darling of the MAGA side of things for this job. I want everybody to listen to what he said in September of 2023 about the FBI.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO SECRETARY OF DEFENSE: The thing that you need to do with the FBI headquarters building is shut it down and open it up the next day as a mausoleum of the deep state and let every American walk the halls freely every day to know how never to operate law enforcement again.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: Does someone like that have a chance with the senators you talk to every day.

FOX: You know, so many of those talking points you can hear in the House of Representatives, among some of the conservative members, those talking points are so much more infrequently heard in the United States Senate. And I think that that just underscores what a difficult time it would be to get him confirmed.

And this falls under the category of let's talk about positions. Let's talk about philosophy on how to run an agency, and that's where the senators may have a very hard time, because all of a sudden, they are dealing with, do we give Trump who he wants, who is going to do things in the way that Trump is imagining them?

Lot of Republicans argue that the president has an opportunity to get who he wants in his cabinet. I think that is the kind of nominee that would be really hard for Republicans to wrestle with.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Worth noting to just my colleagues did some reporting recently. This is rattled the ranks of the FBI, and just throughout the Justice Department as well. You have --

BASH: Which is the point. KANNO-YOUNGS: Right, right, right. Like, even though he hasn't named these people yet, there's already been sort of the damage done. Where you have people in the Justice Department that are upping their insurance and, you know, preparing lawyers for potential legal challenges because of threats of retaliation by the president-elect, others who are looking for other jobs in the private sector as well. So there already is sort of a ripple effect, even just with this cycle.

BASH: OK, everybody standby. Coming up. He's a Democratic governor in a western state with a plan to safeguard democracy. So why is he facing criticism from some fellow Democrats. He said nice things about Robert Kennedy Jr. I'll talk to the Governor of Colorado, Jared Polis after a break.

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