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Inside Politics

Trump Races Through Cabinet Picks Amid Questions About Vetting; Trump's Cabinet Hiccups Echo Scandals of Transitions Past. Interview with Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH); Dems Debate Response to Anti-Trans Attacks Post Election; Flashback: Past Presidential Thanksgiving Turkey Pardons. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired November 24, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:02]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Reality check. With a flurry of new picks Trump's cabinet comes fully into focus.

But after one falls through --

SEN. JOHN CORNYN (R-TX): We're going to do our job under the Constitution.

RAJU: What's next for Trump's other choices?

SEN. CHRIS COONS (D-DE): Looks more like a reality TV show casting call.

RAJU: Plus one on one.

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): I'm not out of touch. How do you call me out of touch when they lie about an issue?

RAJU: Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown on his loss and what he says needs to change.

BROWN: I want to move the Democratic Party back to being the party of workers.

RAJU: And fowl play. A look back at presidential turkey pardons with Biden set to hold his last.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thanksgiving is a special day for turkeys. I guess probably for the most part, not a very good one, when you think about it.

RAJU: INSIDE POLITICS, the best reporting from inside the corridors of power, starts now.

(END VIDEOTAPE) RAJU (on camera): Good morning and welcome to INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. I'm Manu Raju.

It's been less than three weeks since Election Day, and President- elect Donald Trump is done selecting the most senior leaders of his government.

A flurry of weekend announcements underscoring Trump's desire to reward loyalty and polish on television and some of his selections, including to run the powerful budget office in the White House, could place a staunchly conservative imprint on government policies and drastically reshape the federal workforce.

Yet, despite the breakneck pace to fill out his cabinet, Trump is suddenly facing limits of power that once seemed endless, with single party rule coming to Washington. This, after his provocative pick to be attorney general, Matt Gaetz, imploded amid a GOP revolt and as sexual -- as allegations of sexual assault swirl around Trump's pick to run the Pentagon, Pete Hegseth, who contends those accusations are false.

Senators say there are ample questions, not just about his nominees, but how Trump is selecting them.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Don't you think the Trump team should have done a better vetting job?

SEN. THOM TILLIS (R-NC): Well, the more you do up front, the less you have to do on the back end.

SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): If they don't want to vet them more, or if they want to take a chance on these, that's up to them. Our job will be to vet. You know, if they don't, we will. If they do, we will.

COONS: Skipping what has long been a key part of preparation for confirmation, which is an FBI background check and making these decisions so quickly may have led to an early constellation that looks more like a reality TV show casting call than a serious and credible proposals for cabinet.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: All right. Let's break this all down with my great panel this morning CNN's Kristen Holmes, Zolan Kanno-Youngs of "The New York Times", "The Washington Post's" Leigh Ann Caldwell, and Carl Hulse, also of "The New York Times".

Good morning to you all. Nice to see you all.

Kristen, you've been in Florida spending a lot of you might as well establish residency down there. I know. Welcome back. Thanks for being here.

But I want to get your take about the how Trump has filled out his cabinet here. This is much different than the first cabinet in the 2017 version of Donald Trump's administration. Then it was much more establishment picks, people that he listened to saying, these are the people who can help guide you through Washington. This time, much different. It's all about loyalty in a lot of ways.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: And he's making the choices himself. I mean, he's the final say on all of this. We know that he is essentially sitting in a room watching clips of people on television, seeing what they've said about him, both positive and negative, and making sometimes split decisions, which is how we got Matt Gaetz, who obviously now has withdrawn his name, as well as Pete Hegseth, another one who is going to potentially cause some problems for Donald Trump down the road.

But all of these people have one thing in common, which is that they appear to be loyalists to the president elect, and that is something that he cares about. One of the things that we know is that he is not choosing people who others outside of his particular orbit are pushing. This is a very small process that they[re going through right now in order to choose who is going to be on the cabinet. And they already made those choices.

RAJU: In a lot of ways, these are not really people who are experienced in those fields. I mean, if you look at some of the just a handful of the nominees, Linda McMahon, she was a former SBA, Small Business Administration administrator under Trump. She was a former CEO of WWE. Of course, that is a professional wrestling.

Pete Hegseth, we talked about, Fox News host, Army veteran.

And then, you know, Matt Whitaker he is the former acting attorney general. Yes, that's that was a very important job, but not necessarily what he is being nominated for here, which is to be the ambassador -- U.S. ambassador to NATO, a complicated military alliance.

Carl, how unusual -- I mean, you've covered many transition. How unusual is that?

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, very unusual. You want to bring in somebody with some expertise and they can hold off and answer these questions and these confirmation hearings. Where are you going to get really detailed questions?

But obviously, President-elect Trump doesn't really care about that. He wants people that are going to come in and take down these agencies. Right?

[08:05:02]

I will say this, though, it can be hard to take apart an agency if you really don't know that much about it. You don't even know what's going on in there, you know, and the people who are in those agencies really know how to how to protect themselves.

So I think they like the appearance of these disruptors coming in, but it might not work out for them. And it's going to be tough in these hearings, you know, when you really get pressed on, what are you going to do about this or this policy? And you have no real answer for it.

But that's not the point of any of this, right? This is the point is we're going to really turn Washington upside down.

RAJU: And the point is keeping Republicans in line, of course, which will be a whole different question for some of these nominees. But just take a look at the cabinet that that has filled out.

I mean, Trump named a bunch of picks late, last -- late Friday. Many of those -- those will require Senate confirmation. So well see how the confirmation process plays out. There are some interesting picks in there he picked for labor, Lori Chavez-DeRemer. She represents a district in Oregon. She lost in that swing district. She's got a more pro-union stance that has angered some Republicans, some in the business community.

But there are some hardliners as well. There are people that who don't have need Senate confirmation, like Sebastian Gorka. He's a counterterrorism person, official within the White House, someone who relies on that MAGA base.

But people like Pam Bondi for attorney general on that list as well. She doesn't -- she's a she was Trump's second pick for attorney general. She doesn't have the same baggage of Gaetz, but she could still essentially do what Trump wants.

LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, WASHINGTON POST "EARLY BRIEF" CO-AUTHOR: Yeah, absolutely. That's the one thing that is the unifier with all of these Trump picks is that they have are very loyal to the president-elect, and they will likely do what the president elect wants them to do.

But that's not to say that they're like as Carl says, that they're still going to have very tough confirmation hearings. But it's also unclear if Trump is going to submit these people to the traditional background checks and processes that usually takes place in a Senate hearing.

And I don't know if Senate Republicans are I don't know what they're going to do with that. You know, asking some Senate Republicans about that this week. If -- what if he doesn't and they their response is, well, he needs to. So it's just another clash between kind of the executive and the Senate that that could, you know, come down the road.

RAJU: It's interesting. On the Pam Bondi pick. I mean, in a lot of ways, you know her viewpoint of the world is very similar to Matt Gaetz. But she doesn't have the same baggage she doesn't have the same controversies that he does. And in some ways could come across looking more reasonable because of what happened to Matt Gaetz.

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, NEW YORK TIMES WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. That's right. I mean, this is kind of a question that I've had since Gaetz which was what drew was -- you know, now that he did, he provide, in a way, almost a shield from scrutiny from some of these other picks in a way, by having him in the picture and having the bad headlines associated with him and all of that baggage, the investigations as well, were people so focused on Matt Gaetz to the point where some of these other picks, you know, didn't receive as much criticism.

And now that he's out of the picture, does he in a way, sort of normalize this or now is there heightened scrutiny of some of these other picks now that he's out of the picture you know, I -- we've been kind of wondering what the guardrails will be for president-elect that's coming into office and establishing loyalists throughout his government. And when you look at this situation where the Senate did kind of draw a line in the sand and say, we won't accept Matt Gaetz.

I actually don't know if this moment is the one where we can say that Senate Republicans will be that guardrail against the president elect. I mean, Matt Gaetz was one of the -- if not the most, like least like the most unpopular Republicans in Congress, right, so its almost low hanging fruit in a way for the Senate to draw that line in the sand whether this means moving forward, they could be that guardrail. I'm just not sure.

RAJU: It's such a good point. I mean, do you how -- do you think Trump sees that?

HOLMES: Well, what I thought was so interesting about this was that Trump listened to them instead of trying to go on Truth Social and say, lets burn their houses down. Maga is going to come primary you, you're -- we're going to ram this guy through.

He talked to these senators one on one, found out that they -- I mean, the public line is that there were six hard nos. I was told there were ten hard nos, at least at least exactly. And Trump knew that. And he called Matt Gaetz and essentially Gaetz withdrew.

That to me was the most shocking part of all of this, because we were told he was going to essentially do whatever it took to get Gaetz through. But I do agree with you overall that Pam Bondi, for example, everybody was breathing a sigh of relief.

As you said, she has the same viewpoint as Matt Gaetz. She has the same viewpoint as Donald Trump. She has said all the exact same things on Fox News that Matt Gaetz has said. She just doesn't have such a controversial background and is not widely hated.

So does that mean that now people are very happy that she's there? I mean, that's the question.

RAJU: Yeah. And, of course, we'll see how she does in the confirmation hearings as well and if there is a background check that some Republicans are insisting on.

[08:10:01]

Now during the campaign, of course, Trump distanced himself from that conservative manifesto, Project 2025. But he's picked several people who have ties to project 2025 for significant roles within his administration, just several of them up on your screen.

One of the key ones there is Russ Vought, who is of course picked by Trump to lead the very powerful White House Budget Office, which essentially sets the tone and how federal regulations move ahead. Dealing with the policy for their budget plans going forward. This is some of the ideas for project 2025 proposals to replace federal civil servants with political appointees to dismantle aspects, dismantle aspects of the federal government including the Department of Education.

There's a whole host of issues here. How significant is that pick?

HULSE: It's hugely significant. Plus, does anyone really believe that they were separated from Project 2025? I mean obviously that was never really the case, but Russ has been an OMB in waiting here for about four years. He has really assembled a group around him. They've done a lot of study. I've talked to him. I'm sure some of you have, too.

You know, he's ready and has a plan. I think there's going to be a lot of scrutiny on him. Patty Murray immediately, who's the senior Democrat on approps, came out and was like, you know, we need to -- because of his association with Project 2025. I do think that is a pick that people are really going to be looking at.

KANNO-YOUNGS: He was in the administration first time around, and he was responsible for any time that that Trump needed sort of money, but needed to get around Congress. I mea, Russ Vought was almost the guy that would come up with a creative way to accomplish some of his more ambitious goals. I think the border wall and using emergency powers to get border wall funding and not need Congress for that that was him.

He's almost the guy that kind of comes up with these creative ways to move money around in order to accomplish some of these agenda items, so we might see that this time around.

RAJU: As we remember what Trump said on the campaign trail, some on the right severe right came up with this Project 2025. I mean, I don't even know. I mean, I mean, some of them I know who they are, but they're very conservative.

So, very well keeping his distance from this. But now, they're part of his government. We'll see if they get confirmed.

All right. Coming up, Donald Trump is claiming an historic mandate, but how does his margin of victory actually compare to his predecessors?

Plus, I sat down with longtime Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown to dissect his defeat and talk about what's next for Democrats.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: How hard was November 5th for you?

BROWN: Well, I lost, but we ran ahead of the national ticket.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:17:03]

RAJU: Donald Trump is not the first to lose a cabinet pick. In fact, it's more common than you may think. While the year 1989 was the last time the Senate actually voted down a nominee, that's when George H.W. Bush had nominated Texas Senator John Tower for defense secretary, who was undone in part by stories of excessive drinking and what was referred to at the time as quote womanizing.

Most of the time actually, cabinet picks see the writing on the wall and drop out before the Senate has a chance to vote them down, as Matt Gaetz did last week amid bipartisan opposition to his selection as attorney general.

Take nannygate. Bill Clinton nominated Zoe Baird for attorney general in 1993, but she withdrew over allegations she had an employed undocumented migrants for childcare.

And fast forward to 2009, when Barack Obama's pick to lead the Department of Health and Human Services, Tom Daschle, withdrew his nomination after he admitted to errors on his tax returns.

And in 2018, Trump's nominee for V.A. secretary, Ronny Jackson took his name out of consideration following a flurry of allegations about his professional conduct that included excessive drinking and loosely handling prescription pain meds. He is now a Republican congressman.

Since 1989, there have been at least 13 failed cabinet nominees not including Matt Gaetz. So for Trump, is anyone next?

My panel is back.

So there are lots of controversial nominees still. Tulsi Gabbard is among the top of them for the department of -- for the lead of the intelligence apparatus. Pete Hegseth, of course, the defense pick, RFK Jr. and the like. As you can see on your screen lots of controversial headlines around them.

You're talking to senators all the time, Leigh Ann, what's your sense of who has the most trouble ahead?

CALDWELL: So -- its a good question. I am actually of the mindset, but I was also wrong about Matt Gaetz. I thought Matt Gaetz was going to be attorney general.

RAJU: Things change.

CALDWELL: Things change, but I am really, uh I think that senators are going to be very hard for them to go against the president once the Trump onslaught begins, not just with, you know, Trump pressuring them but the online organization behind him, threats of primaries, et cetera. But with that said the ones I think that have the most difficulty is

going to be Pete Hegseth, but I also think that the Republican Party is looking the other way for a lot of these allegations. Look at Donald Trump won the presidency. So do these sexual misconduct allegations actually matter anymore? And is that going to hurt a nominee when the president with very similar allegations was just elected?

RAJU: This is what the conservative Wall Street journal editorial board said they talked about loyalty and the need for competent deputies in the cabinet. But they also said there are plenty of smart, determined conservatives to fill a cabinet. So there's little for Mr. Trump to gain by trying to strong-arm Republican senators into taking hard votes on ill-qualified nominees, and went on to say, political capital is a terrible thing for an incoming president to waste.

[08:20:11]

And look at the Republican senators who may they may have to use political capital on to get them to vote a certain way. Remember, you can only lose three Republican senators on any party line vote. Several of those in not always in line with Donald Trump, including Mitch McConnell. Yeah, I tried to get Matt Gaetz.

HULSE: I think Mitch McConnell is going to be one of the most interesting people in this whole thing to watch. He's been telling his colleagues he is liberated and he doesn't have to keep the party together. And on someone like Tulsi Gabbard, right, who her intelligence background is going to be subject to some serious scrutiny. I think she's somebody who is going to come under pressure.

I do think that Matt Gaetz leaving a little early, quickly kind of opened the door like, okay, who's next? Who do we really look at now?

RAJU: Because they could have taken all the attention right away.

HULSE: Right. But the -- you know, its interesting when you talk about these past ones I did a piece on this last week and John Cornyn said standards are evolving, but the --

RAJU: Compared to those past scandals.

HULSE: Correct.

And that interestingly, Chuck Grassley was the person who did a lot of that. The senator from Iowa, chairman of the finance committee back then who did a lot of the vetting on taxes. So, we'll see if that same tax vetting occurs with these nominees.

RAJU: I have a feeling some of the standards still may be evolving, and I want to turn the discussion more about the potential of overreach, because this happens in every administration coming in. They come in they view they have a clear mandate sometimes. They often go too far. And then there's blowback in the midterms offense time and time again. This is just where things stand in terms of Trump's winning the

popular vote versus Kamala Harris Right now, he's just under 50 percent, 49.9 percent to 48.3 to Kamala Harris. Just look at how his popular vote victory compares to past presidents not as much as Joe Biden back in 2020. That was 7.1 million votes.

2016 Hillary Clinton. You can see she lost, of course, the Electoral College that he had. Trump is behind her and then all down behind well how does that affect the Trump team's thinking? Because there's been a lot of discussion, including in the media, that this was, as "The Times" put it, the landslide that wasn't. Trump and his allies pump up his narrow victory.

HOLMES: Yeah, I don't think for Donald Trump and his team, it matters how narrow the victory was. It just matters that there was a victory, they believed. And Donald Trump felt vindicated by the fact that he won the popular vote. It doesn't matter if it was by even less than what we saw. That 2.5. The idea was that he felt that he was told over and over again that these policies are radical, that people in America don't want to vote for you.

And in 2016, when he won, there was an entire uprising of you won the electoral vote, but you didn't actually win. You lost the popular vote. And the idea was that he went into office trying to prove that he had won the presidency, even though he had won the presidency. I mean, he did a victory tour, did a bunch of rallies to show he was the winner.

He does not feel that way this time around. He feels it's not just a mandate. It's also a level of vindication that all these things he was putting forward that everyone was saying were too radical. Everyone in America is not going to vote for this. They then ended up voting for it.

So it doesn't really matter to him what the margin was. But he does feel empowered to now act on some of these things, like immigration for example.

RAJU: And his margins in the House and the Senate are much tighter than they were than some of his predecessors. I mean, even Obama back in 2009, oh, my gosh, 79, can you remember that 79 seat advantage Democrat over Republicans in the House, 18 seat advantage in the Senate obviously much tighter now for Trump, which single party rule? Yes. It's great when your party is in charge but it is incredibly complicated especially with margins this tight.

KANNO-YOUNGS: Absolutely and, you know, especially if he only has, you know, a slim majority, you know, particularly in the House that could now put pressure not just on mike Johnson but when you have a slim majority, it also exposes the fractures of a party, you know, in Congress as well, and some of the different views. And that's where you start to get debates going out into the public.

So, particularly, look there's a lot in this in his agenda that he can do through executive action, through some of the creative maneuvering that we were describing up before. But, you know, hell also need congressional help as well.

RAJU: Yeah. And that's and the question will be, how will Democrats respond? Will they be unified? Will they fracture themselves and a little bit up next about that, Sherrod Brown, who has been one of the nation's marquee Senate races this year as you can see there off in a hurry. Well, this time, he agreed to sit down and chat.

So we talked about his defeat and what's next for him and the Democratic Party. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:29:16]

RAJU: It was a consistent theme for Democrats in competitive congressional races this cycle. They outpaced Vice President Kamala Harris in virtually every single one of them. But in red states like Ohio, the headwinds at the top of the ticket were too much, even for Sherrod Brown, who has served in Congress for more than three decades, and built a brand based on populist-tinged rhetoric and blue collar appeal.

But those working class voters are now backing Trump in larger numbers in Ohio has shifted decisively to the right no longer the presidential battleground. It was just over a decade ago. So what has changed and how do Democrats bounce back?

I sat down with Senator Brown this past week to talk about his loss, the future of his party, and what he's planning to do next.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: How hard was November 5th for you?

SEN. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Well, I lost, but we ran ahead of the national ticket.

When Connie and I decided roughly two years ago to run again, we knew that I'd have more money spent against me probably than anybody. When you build your career standing up for workers, when you fight, take on the drug companies, when you take on the companies that outsource jobs, when you hold Wall Street accountable, they come after you.

And that's why I think they spent literally, we think, $220 million.

RAJU: Was there a sense that you thought you were going to pull this off, or was there a point where it seemed like this was going in the wrong direction?

BROWN: No, I expected to win because I'm out a lot, and I talk to workers. I talk to people year-round. I come home, I listen to people. That's where my ideas come from.

I expected to win because of that, because I saw the enthusiasm in the crowds. What I didn't see is the ad they did at the end, where Trump said, "Voting for Sherrod Brown is voting against me." And when the leader of your ticket runs 12 points behind almost, you can't overcome that, even though it was a close race in the end.

RAJU: So Trump made the difference here?

BROWN: A lot of things made the difference. I'd say it's the money and Trump. I mean, that kind of money -- that kind of money just for month after month after month with nasty, negative ads, all of which were found to be not true by neutral fact-checkers.

I guess that's how you win a race. You lie, you spend a lot of money, and then you, as my opponent, hope that your candidate, Trump in this case, would win by a lot.

RAJU: So you don't think that Bernie Moreno ran a clean race?

BROWN: You can be the judge of that.

I think when you run ads and they're proven to be lies by fact- checkers -- you're a pretty smart analyst, Manu, and you can connect that dot, and let you do it.

RAJU: How much do you think that the Democratic brand hurt you in your state?

BROWN: I don't particularly like the term brand, but the Democrats -- since NAFTA, workers have drifted away from the Democratic Party.

To me, politics is not really left to right. It's whose side you're on. Voters in Ohio know I'm on their side. I think we have drifted away as a party, and I want to -- I want to -- I mean, to Democrats, my mission is -- as it was in the Senate, it will be the same out of the Senate, is to make the Democratic Party the party of workers.

RAJU: But simply how, because how have you guys drifted away?

BROWN: A Trump judge in East Texas knocked down -- one judge cost four million -- this is four million workers that would have benefited. One judge. Think about that. I'm pretty angry about it, as you can see.

One judge denied four million workers in this country their overtime. We ought to be talking about that. My guess is you have never covered it. My guess is very little media have covered it, and I know that very few Democrats have talked about it.

And Trump and his crowd, his corporate crowd that's always looking out for their rich friends hope it goes away and hope it gets ignored. But I'm not going to let it get ignored.

RAJU: But why are the working-class voters moving to him?

BROWN: I think that we don't appear to be fighting for them. So they get distracted on issues that -- first of all, we will use inflation as an example.

Republicans put inflation totally at the feet of higher government spending. That's not what caused inflation. Don't blame it on government spending, for God's sakes.

The answer is that corporations have the stock buybacks, higher stock buybacks, corporate profits are up, stock market is up, wages have been flat.

We need to take on those interest groups that cause that. And some people, some economists called it transitory. You remember that a few months ago.

RAJU: Yes. I mean, the Biden administration was calling it that.

BROWN: That's the mistake we made. I mean, we have seen workers bleed from our party for 30 years, but we have got to bring them back.

RAJU: Do you think Harris was out of touch on those issues?

BROWN: She had 100 days to run a campaign. I'm not going to look back and be the critic of -- that's your job.

RAJU: What about just on the cultural issues itself? I mean, you were -- they came after you on transgender issues. You had to cut an ad defending yourself on this issue.

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, I cut an ad showing they lied.

RAJU: Yes.

BROWN: And people like you, I don't know if you particularly, Manu, but many media fact-checkers said it was a lie.

But that's what they do. They spend. They lie about -- they take an issue that they know polls well, they lie about it, and they put -- in this case, they spent $40 million on eight different ads on that issue.

RAJU: On transgender issues?

BROWN: Yes, they weren't talking about how to make Ohio a better state. They're not doing their job on education. They're not doing their job on health care. They're not doing their job on creating jobs.

RAJU: But they're winning elections in a successful --

BROWN: They're winning elections in part because they have rigged the system. They have made it harder to vote. They have changed ballot language in a draconian -- in a dramatic way with the last election. They did that with abortion rights. It didn't work in that case.

[08:34:44]

RAJU: Yes they spent all this money on you, against you guys.

One, are you out of touch on those issues? Two, should you guys have done a better job in pushing back?

BROWN: Well, I'm not out of touch on those issues. I go home. I hear people all the time. I know how they focus-group and they lie.

I mean, how do you call me out of touch when they lie about an issue?

RAJU: I mean, I guess it's effective -- it's been an effective campaign tactic. Do you think it was not an --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Yes so, if you want to be so cynical as a reporter that, oh it worked, we applaud them, so they're so smart.

RAJU: I'm not applauding them, I'm just saying that, if it works, it works, right?

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: Well, yes, but your job, as someone who is a fair player in this, and I think you are -- I have known you a long time -- is rather than commenting on it works, comment on, they lied, and that's not a fair way to play.

RAJU: How should your party approach this, because these attacks --

(CROSSTALK)

BROWN: The party needs to approach -- needs to talk to workers.

I ran way better than the national ticket, in spite of those attack ads, because many people believed them, no matter what, that's how it happened. Because voters trusted me because they know I fight for them in the workplace.

RAJU: Trump 2.0, how should Democrats position themselves?

BROWN: I'm not here. I don't know. But I do think we have got to do it through the prism, as I do in my state, of the dignity of work.

When, you know, when almost any issue comes up, to me, it's about workers. What binds us is -- as a society is work.

RAJU: As we close here, I want to talk about your future. There's a Senate race in 2026. Are you considering running?

BROWN: I'm not dismissing anything at this point.

RAJU: You could go through this again?

BROWN: I'm not dismissing anything at this point.

RAJU: What about governor?

BROWN: I'm not dismissing -- didn't I say that already? I'm not dismissing anything at this point. RAJU: How much has -- you have been here now for a number of years -- how much has this place changed?

BROWN: Well, it's changed in large part because of the money and because people willing -- more and more willing to vote a party line.

As you know, there are very few split delegations now. There's only, I don't know, Maine and Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. That might be it. Where there's one Republican, one Democrat, people are voting straight party lines. That's troubling, but it's people's decisions.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, in response to Senator Brown's comments to me about how Bernie Moreno conducted his campaign, a spokesman for the senator- elect told me in a statement -- quote -- "Sherrod Brown is a bitter career politician who's lashing out because he has to find a real job for the first time in his life and work for his paycheck like everyone else."

[08:37:10]

RAJU: Carl, you talked to Sherrod Brown. What did he tell you?

CARL HULSE, CHIEF WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT, NEW YORK TIMES: Well, I do know his colleagues are encouraging him to run and in a midterm -- to run again --

RAJU: Right.

HULSE: -- to run again. And in a midterm, it would seem he would have a good shot because the, you know, of the inevitable backlash. However, he would have to run again. Then in two more years, I think that that seems a little daunting. But he may -- he may do it, but he also you know, this isn't the time that politicians like to make decisions about what they're going to do next, because he's obviously still in this.

I know he's got himself an expensive new guitar and he's brushing up on his chords with his grandchildren.

RAJU: Yes, we'll see what he decides ultimately to do.

All right. Coming up, why has a Republican congresswoman posted more than 300 times about one subject in just the past few days? We'll tell you why, next.

[08:38:02]

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RAJU: The culture wars have recently put Republicans on the defensive when it comes to the issue of abortion. But this cycle, it was Democrats who were in an awkward spot as the GOP focused on turning transgender rights into a wedge issue. Kamala Harris largely ignored tens of millions of dollars in attacks

from Donald Trump and his allies over transgender issues. But now the culture wars have reached Capitol Hill, with Speaker Mike Johnson bowing to pressure from his right flank to ban transgender women from using women's restrooms in the Capitol. That includes incoming freshman Democrat Sarah McBride, the first openly trans member.

Democrats now are trying to find the right way to respond.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REP. ALEXANDRIA OCASIO CORTEZ (D-NY): Everybody, no matter how you feel on this issue, should reject it completely. What are they doing? They're doing this so that Nancy Mace can make a buck and send a text and fundraise off an email. They're not doing this to protect people.

REP. MARK POCAN (D-WI): I think we're doing what we need to. But you notice we don't bring these issues up. The Republicans do. They're always looking for diversions because they can't govern.

Look, pass a farm bill. Pass the appropriation bills. Do your job and let people use the bathroom they're going to use.

REP. SEAN CASTEN (D-IL): If your goal is to spread hatred and fear in the world, ok, fine but it is beneath the dignity of this, of this institution. It's beneath the dignity of a decent moral human being.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Of course, Republicans look at the numbers, the money that was spent on this issue between July and November in this election cycle $59.4 million on issues involving transgender rights in particular, 11.6 percent on those ads.

Zolan what do Democrats have to do to respond here going forward?

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, "NEW YORK TIMES": Well, I mean, one, you could start by responding, right? I mean --

RAJU: Harris didn't do that at all.

KANNO-YOUNGS: -- throughout the presidential campaign I mean, it was very easy. If you were tuning in on Sunday and watching football, if you were watching TV, just any day, you'd be inundated with anti-trans ads. You know, from Republicans and from the Trump campaign.

And, you know, I think the response really I mean, it reminds me of that old adage, if you have -- if you create a void of information, somebody's going to fill it.

[08:44:46]

KANNO-YOUNGS: And Republicans threw -- the money that they invested were able to dictate the argument on this issue. You know, I don't exactly know what the right, you know, response would be here, but I know that there was a void that was created. And look, you know, often we talk about this in political terms as a

political debate. There is a community that's caught in the middle here as well.

RAJU: Yes.

KANNO-YOUNG: That is really scared right now.

RAJU: And speaking of their future -- speaking of the Trevor Project, which is a nonprofit that focuses on suicide prevention and crisis intervention for LGBTQ+ youth plus young people, said the crisis service contacts are up nearly 700 percent on November 6.

I mean, this all comes, of course, as Sarah McBride, who's the first openly trans member who will join Congress next year as a member from Delaware, responded to all of this saying that I'm not here to fight about bathrooms. I'm here to fight for Delawareans and to bring down costs facing families.

She's in a complicated position because people want her to be the person fighting back on these issues, but she does not want to be. LEIGH ANN CALDWELL, EARLY BRIEF CO-AUTHOR, "WASHINGTON POST": Yes, and

that's where Democrats -- it's interesting they had -- some Democrats had a press conference earlier this week, and they said, you know I pushed them to say where are you going to work with the president- elect and they said on issues that matter to people.

When it comes to cultural issues, we are going to fight back because that's what they're waging right now is a culture war, and we'll see how they do that.

But with Representative Nancy Mace, the person who kind of led this charge, a Republican of South Carolina, she used to be from a swing district. It's a little more red now. But she, you know, tweeted hundreds of times about this issue. But --

RAJU: More than 300 times about this issue.

CALDWELL: Thank you. More than --

RAJU: And actually just show it on your screen there as Leigh Ann finishes her thought. Just look at the amount of tweets just over the past week on this from Nancy Mace, but continue.

CALDWELL: Yes, she is somewhat -- she got a lot of attention this week about it. When you look further down in her Twitter feed, she was very pro LGBTQ rights earlier on when she came to Congress over the past couple of years and said they wanted to expand the tent for the Republican Party. And so this is a complete about face for her.

RAJU: Yes. Speaking of which, this is what she said in 2021. She said, "I strongly support LGBTQ rights. No one should be discriminated against. Religious liberty, gay rights, and transgender equality can all coexist."

That was from that. You know, her district has gotten more conservative, too. I mean, this is from 2020. She had -- she was -- GOP had about a 1.2 percent advantage there. Now it's gotten much more conservative 16.6 percent, sort of tracks the evolution on this issue too.

HULSE: Standards are evolving right? That's what John Cornyn said.

RAJU: Yes.

HULSE: I do think that Democrats really have to figure out a way to answer this, though, because Republicans repeatedly told me, as I was covering Senate race, that this was a difference maker for them.

You heard Sherrod Brown say it too and so they need to figure this out.

KRISTEN HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And I was told by the Trump campaign at the time that they tested out this ad. And when they saw that there was no response from Democrats, that's when they poured the millions of dollars behind it because they realized that they had stepped into something in which there was a complete void on the other side, and that the silence was actually giving them more fuel when it came to this argument.

RAJU: I mean, that's a tactical decision by the democrats not to respond.

HOLMES: Right.

RAJU: Ultimately, when this campaign is written, perhaps that will be one thing we'll look back. But kind of like the Willie Horton ad back in the time of Dukakis.

CALDWELL: Yes but this is important to remember --

(CROSSTALKING)

HULSE: Barely ran.

CALDWELL: -- it's important to remember, it's important to remember that this impacts such a very small percentage of people. And the fact that it has been blown up as if this is a major, major cultural issue. I mean, it's just, you know, putting it in context is important.

RAJU: Yes, indeed it is. All right. Thank you, guys. Great discussion.

But we've got more coming up including fowl news about President Biden's final presidential turkey pardon. A look back at the tradition that dates from JFK to today -- to today, and the terrible puns that come with it.

It's only a member (ph) of time before someone gets roasted.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I know there's some bad ones in here but this is the last time I'm doing this, so were not leaving any room for leftovers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

[08:48:56]

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RAJU: Now it's time to talk turkey. President Biden is expected to ruffle feathers tomorrow when he gives two lucky turkeys a get-out-of- jail card at his final turkey pardon ceremony.

Now, this year's birds were plucked from Minnesota and weighed around 40 pounds each. It's a moment carved into presidential history.

Folklore has it that the tradition started when President Abraham Lincoln asked his father to spare the turkey that was supposed to be dinner. And in 1963, President John F. Kennedy gave the first documented turkey a pardon.

But the ceremony only became the norm in 1989. That's when President George H.W. Bush revived the tradition. And since then, the turkeys and the bad jokes have been gobbling up the spotlight year after year.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BILL CLINTON, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I'm glad I can make at least one turkey happy this year.

GEORGE W. BUSH, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Make sure they have plenty to eat for their Thanksgiving dinner. For the sake of our feathered guest, I'm not going to elaborate on the contents of those baskets.

OBAMA: I want to take a moment to recognize the brave turkeys who weren't so lucky, who didn't get to ride the gravy train to freedom, who met their fate with courage and sacrifice and proved that they weren't chicken.

[08:54:55]

OBAMA: It's not that bad now. Come on.

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: Thanksgiving is a special day for turkeys. I guess probably for the most part, not a very good one when you think about it.

RONALD REAGAN, FORMER PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: January 20th I'll come to the farm to see you.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: After receiving their pardons, these feathered friends will spend their days back home in Minnesota, where one can only hope the weather will not be foul.

Ok. Sorry for stuffing you with puns this morning, but I've been winging it.

All right, that's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju; follow the show @INSIDEPOLITICS. Follow me on Instagram @manu_raju.

If you ever miss an episode, catch up wherever you get your podcasts. Just search for INSIDE POLITICS.

Up next, STATE OF THE UNION WITH JAKE TAPPER AND DANA BASH. Dana's guests include Senators James Lankford, Markwayne Mullin, and Tammy Duckworth.

Thanks again for sharing your Sunday morning with us. We'll see you next time.

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