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Biden: Thankful For My Family And "A Peaceful Transition"; Biden: I Hope Trump Rethinks Tariff On Canada, Mexico; Trump Claims Win On Border After Call With Mexico's President; Trump Pushes Major Policy Initiatives Ahead Of Inauguration; Putin: Trump "Intelligent And Already Quite Experienced"; Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg Visits Trump At Mar-A-Lago; Brown: "Workers Have Drifted Away From The Democratic Party"; Outgoing Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown Rejects On Defeat. Aired 12- 12:30p ET

Aired November 28, 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]

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: Today on a special holiday edition of Inside Politics, Donald Trump won't be president for 53 more days. But that's not stopping him from announcing new policies and cajoling foreign leaders, including a back and forth last night with the new Mexican president.

Plus, I go one on one with Senator Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democrat who lost his race for reelection this month. His blunt message to his party, win back working-class voters, or face years in the electoral wilderness.

In Palm Beach, Florida, home to Mar-a-Lago was once a Democratic stronghold, now it's the center of the MAGA universe. We'll look at how Donald Trump's reelection has changed the lives of the people who live there.

I'm Manu Raju in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Two very different Thanksgiving messages this morning from the president the United States and the president-elect as they prepare for the transfer of power.

President-elect Trump posted this message on Truth Social early this morning, saying, happy Thanksgiving to all, including the radical left lunatics who have worked so hard to destroy our country, but who have miserably failed and will always fail. Don't worry, our country will soon be respected, productive, fair and strong, and you will be more than ever before, proud to be an American.

And moments ago, we heard from President Biden. He was visiting a firehouse on Nantucket, where he's spending the holiday. This is what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I'm thankful for a peaceful transition to the presidency, and I'm thankful for the fact that I think, with the grace of God to go and make a good look. We're going to get some more progress in the middle east. And I'm really thankful for being able to get the first piece down on -- running on. There's a lot to be thankful.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: And we have reports with both the current and future president. Steve Contorno is in West Palm Beach. Arlette Saenz is on Nantucket. So, Arlette Saenz, we're going to start with you. President Biden made a little news this morning. What did he say?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. Before President Biden gets to his Thanksgiving dinner, he did speak with reporters and specifically addressed these new proposals from president-elect Trump to raise significant tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada.

The President Biden said he thinks that Trump should reconsider that warning that it could jeopardize relations with two of the United States closest allies. These comments are significant for President Biden, who was really refrained from weighing in or criticizing any of Trump's policies since the election earlier this month.

President Biden has long warned that he believes tariffs could have an inflationary impact on the U.S., but now he is warning that it could threaten relations with Mexico and Canada. Take a listen.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BIDEN: I hope he rethinks it. I think it's a counterproductive thing to do. You know, look, one of the things you've heard me say before that we have a usual situation in America. We're surrounded by the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic Ocean, and two allies, Mexico and Canada. The last thing we need to do is begin to screw up those relationships.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

SAENZ: Now this really serves as a reminder that these two men have wildly different views on policy like tariffs and the economy and how to deal with relations with allies to the north and south of the United States, but also on the world stage.

Of course, Trump has said that he wants to raise tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada by 25 percent until the countries do more to curb the flow of drugs and migrants into the U.S. But President Biden made these comments as he was visiting that firehouse here in Nantucket.

He's expected in a short while to make some calls to troops who are serving overseas, away from their families on this Thanksgiving holiday. For President Biden, it's a family tradition to spend the year -- the Thanksgiving holiday here on Nantucket, and this will be the final time he is here as president, as his time in office is starting to wind up.

RAJU: All right, Arlette Saenz, with the president on Nantucket. Thank you for that. And Steve, those Biden comments come after Trump talked about tariffs last night with the president of Mexico.

STEVE CONTORNO, CNN REPORTER: That's right, Manu. Donald Trump already engaging in trade policy, in fact, seeming to start a trade war negotiated, at least, according to him, resolve one in the span of a few days. Trump, in that call with Mexico, claiming that she agreed to close the southern border.

[12:05:00]

Take a look at what he wrote on Truth Social saying, quote, she has agreed to stop migration through Mexico and into the United States, effectively closing our southern border. And Trump had said that the 25 percent tariff that he had threatened would be in place until they stopped the flow of migrants and drugs across that border.

It's not clear, though, if this agreement that they reached by phone or whatever discussion they had resolved this, this could dispute and whether they are going to lift the threat of a tariff. I asked the Trump transition team exactly that, and did not get a response.

There does, though, appear to be some disconnect between Trump's victory lap on Truth Social and how the Mexican president described the conversation. She wrote on X, quote, we reiterate that Mexico's position is not to close the borders, but to build bridges between governments and between peoples.

And earlier in the week, she had put out a letter and a statement in which she had said that they had already taken significant measures to address the flow of migrants through their country, and they took credit for the fact that border crossings in the past year are down 75 percent.

And so, it's not exactly clear how these two narratives are going to work themselves out, and whether or not this 25 percent tariff that Trump has been threatening will be there on day one, as he said he is ready to do. Manu?

RAJU: Yeah. Both leaders agreeing that as a positive call, not agreeing on what was said. Steve Contorno from West Palm Beach, Florida, with the president-elect, thank you so much. And joining me now here at the table, a great panel of reporters this afternoon. CNN's Eva McKend, CNN's Daniel Strauss, and Burgess Everett of Semafor. Happy Thanksgiving to all. Happy Thanksgiving to you at home. Thank you for tuning in.

Interesting swipe from President Biden and Donald Trump. He's not said a whole lot about Trump in the aftermath of the election here. But just to remind our viewers, he criticized the tariffs. Trump on threatening tariffs against China, against Mexico, against Canada, and said the last thing we need to do is screw up both relationships.

EVA MCKEND, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. This is, I think, surprising from President Biden because it is a departure from the tone that we have seen him employ over the last several days. What we have seen from him is just trying to calm everyone's nerves at this point and telegraph that he is fully going to participate in a peaceful transition of power, something, of course, that he was not afforded four years ago.

But listen on this issue, I think Democrats are hoping that if the former president pushes too far, once he is in office, that he is going to confront some of the very same challenges that Democrats had. And that is in terms of the cost of living. You don't want to do anything to make Americans' lives more expensive. That was part of the message that we received in this election.

RAJU: Oftentimes, there's one president at a time, but there's now seems to be two presidents at a time. Trump very much deeply engaging on policy, making threats about tariffs, talking to foreign leaders, talking about things that he would do is that he was coming in.

This is much different than Trump in 2017. The transition that happened then, where there was a lot of infighting, they were still struggling to get people just to fill out the government. Now, Trump very much trying to drive policy before he's even in office.

DANIEL STRAUSS, CNN NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER: And look, that's part of Trump's pitch for a second term, which is that in the first term, as he said, he didn't know enough people in Washington. Didn't know the ways of Washington. And now, as he would note, he knows everyone in Washington. And he's much more comfortable into the role that he's inheriting once again.

So, he is eager to contrast himself with the outgoing administration and really install the policies that he promised, and he feels are going to catapult the country like a rocket, he would say, economically, in during his administration. And he's not as interested in affording the longstanding tradition of staying out of the last administration during this overlap period.

RAJU: Yeah. And on one of those things, this conversation with the Mexican president, saying Truth Social, of course, that this is she had agreed to effectively close our southern border. That's not what she said she agreed to. But just a reminder of where things are on the issue of border crossings, illegal border crossings.

They're actually down significantly since -- really, since the height of it, back late last year in December, all the way down through now. A lot of it stemming from Biden's executive orders that came as a result of a lot of pressure and the failure to act in Congress. But this is class of Trump, right? He's going to claim victory, even if victory had happened before he did anything.

BURGESS EVERETT, CONGRESSIONAL BUREAU CHIEF, SEMAFOR: Not only that, but these are like the two -- as you could look at the two signature issues for Donald Trump, he vacillates on a lot of policy issues, but the border and tariffs are not those issues. On tariffs, he's been consistent.

[12:10:00]

RAJU: He's been saying it since 1990 or 2000 and the like.

EVERETT: Right. And during his first presidency, we saw that he would -- he would follow through on them, not only on other countries like China, but on allies in Europe with the steel and aluminum tariffs. So, when he threatens these things. People have to take him seriously now. Even if members of his own party want him to use them as leverage rather than follow through on him.

RAJU: I mean, do you expect much pushback from Republicans on the tariffs? I mean, this is supposed -- used to be a party of free traders.

EVERETT: Yeah.

RAJU: This used to be the Bush policy that pushed for free trade policy, obviously, a much different now. But where we're talking to Republicans on the Hill. Is there going to be pushback on this?

EVERETT: I mean, the party has changed, but it's a party in transition, especially in the Senate, where you and I spend a lot of our time. These folks were around, many of them in Congress 20 years ago. They are still free traders, a lot of them, so there's a big divide there. And I think at this point, Trump's not president yet. It's kind of unclear whether he's going to follow through on these tariffs right away.

So what Republicans are going to say as well, he's just using this for a negotiating position. He's just using this for leverage to stem border crossings, stem fentanyl coming into the country, but we also know he'll follow through on that. And I don't think Republicans want him to, because that's probably the biggest opening for Democrats politically.

Is if Trump, like Eva was talking about, his actions end up raising prices, start to wreck the economy and things like that. That's what could turn the fortunes around for the Democratic Party, a lot more than these moments of introspection that they're going through right now.

RAJU: Meantime, world leaders, the world, whole country once ready, bracing for Trump to come into office, including the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, who actually made some remarks this morning about Donald Trump.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PRES. VLADIMIR PUTIN, RUSSIA: As far as I can imagine, the newly elected president is an intelligent and already quite experienced person. I think he will find a solution, especially after he went through such a, let's say, very serious test as the fight to return to the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: So, yes. I don't think we heard Putin saying that about Joe Biden when he was president.

MCKEND: He did not. But listen, Putin is taking the same cues as some of the millionaires and billionaires in this country. They know well that the former president responds well to flattery and that you can get a lot done if you just sort of satisfy his ego. He's not all that ideologically complex, right? Not all that deep. You know, you say nice things to him, and he is sort of willing to bend based on who he's talking to and who's in the room.

So, I suspect that this is very much the tone that we are going to hear, at least publicly, from a lot of foreign leaders. And I will say this is the reason why folks in the national security community were so nervous because the former president is so -- could they argue, be so easily manipulated with this type of flattery.

RAJU: But it is the flattery, people are recognize -- they have recognized. A lot of them recognize it right away. Some have been slow to realize that that actually works with Donald Trump, including the Meta founder, Mark Zuckerberg, who was actually down in Mar-a-Lago just yesterday, meeting with Donald Trump.

And despite Trump saying this in a coffee table book that was released two months ago, where this is an excerpt from that book, talking about Zuckerberg. He said, we are watching him closely, and he does anything illegal this time. He will spend the rest of his life in prison, as will others who cheat in the 2024 presidential election.

And then here's Stephen Miller, who is the incoming White House Trump deputy chief of staff, saying, talking about Zuckerberg.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

STEPHEN MILLER, INCOMING TRUMP WHITE HOUSE DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF: Stephen Miller: Mark Zuckerberg has been very clear about his desire to be a supporter of and a participant in this change that we're seeing all around America, all around the world, with this reform movement that Donald Trump is leading.

Mark Zuckerberg, like so many business leaders, understand that President Trump is an agent of change, an agent of prosperity.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Falling in line. They have to,

STRAUSS: I guess. I think --

RAJU: Especially, I guess for him. He's Elon Musk.

STRAUSS: Yeah. What we're seeing right now is a lot of the top executives in this country wanting to make sure, as we go into this administration, that they are on good terms with the president elect, and that's what we saw, really in the beginning, after Trump won the election a few weeks ago.

That you had executives from Apple, you had Mark Zuckerberg, you had Elon Musk, really wanting to make sure and reiterate that they were on board. They felt that they had a good relationship, and that Trump felt good about interacting with him. RAJU: Yeah. They can do that now. We'll see when those decisions actually are made, Will they still be on the same page? Will they speak out, and how will trump react? All big questions in the year ahead. All right, up next. Parting shots from a veteran Democratic senator who came up short in his 2024 reelection break. His take on what happened and what's ahead for his party and the country.

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(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

RAJU: It was a consistent theme for Democrats in competitive Senate races this cycle. They outpaced Vice President Kamala Harris in virtually every single one of them. Just look at that chart. Trump won all five of these states, but Democratic Senate candidates won two of them and the others, the Democrat outran Harris, but the headwinds were still too much for them to overcome.

[12:20:00]

Even Ohio's Sherrod Brown, who served in Congress for more than three decades and built a brand based on populist tins rhetoric and blue- collar appeal. But those working-class voters are now backing Trump in larger numbers. And Ohio has shifted decisively to the right, no longer the presidential battleground it was as recently as 2012.

So, what has changed? And how do Democrats bounce back? Well, last week, I sat down with Senator Brown to talk about his loss in the future of the Democratic Party.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: How hard was November 5th for you?

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

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

BROWN: To win because I'm out a lot. And I talked to -- when I talked to workers, I talked 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 I was a close race in the end.

RAJU: So, Trump made the difference here.

BROWN: A lot of things made the difference. I'd save some money in Trump. I mean, that kind of money -- that kind of money, just for a 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 pretty smart analysts Manu, and you can connect that dot and let you do it.

RAJU: How much do you think that the Democratic brand hurts 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 who side you on. Voters in Ohio, no, I'm on their side. I think we've 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: Specifically, how? Because how have you guys drifted away?

BROWN: A Trump judge in East Texas knocked down. One judge cost 4 million. This is 4 million workers that would have benefited. One judge, think about that. I'm pretty angry about it. As you can see, one judge denied 4 million workers in this country. They're over time. We ought to be talking about that.

My guess is, you've never covered it. My guess is very little media have covered it. And I know that very few Democrats have talked about it in 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: 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'll use inflation as 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 gosh sakes.

The answer is that corporations have stock buyback -- higher stock buybacks. Corporate profits are up. Stock markets up. Wages have been flat. We need to take on those interest groups that cause that. And you know, some people, some economists, called it transitory. You remember that a few months ago.

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

BROWN: That's the mistake we made. I mean, we've seen workers bleed from our party for 30 years, but we've 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. 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.

BROWN: And I cut it out showing they lied. Yeah, 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 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.

BROWN: Yeah. 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 healthcare. They're not doing their job on creating jobs. But they're winning elections.

RAJU: Is it a successful?

BROWN: Because they're winning elections in part because they -- they've rigged the system. They made it harder to vote. They've 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.

[12:25:00]

RAJU: Yes, they spent all this money in 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: No, no. I'm not out of touch with 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 effect. It's been an effective campaign tactic. Do you think it was --

BROWN: If you want to be so cynical as a reporter that, oh, it worked. We applaud them. So, they're so smart.

RAJU: Bottom that, I'm saying -- I just saying that if it works, it works, right?

BROWN: Well, yeah. But your job as a as someone who is a fair player in this, and I think you are, I've 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 he's a tax --

BROWN: 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 believe them, no matter what. That's how it happens, 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've got to do it through the prism, as I do in my state of the dignity of work.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

RAJU: Now, in response to Senator Brown's comments to me about how Marino 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.

All right, Burgess, you are in the Capitol. You talked to Sherrod Brown. You were down in Ohio covering this race. Could he have done anything differently to change what happened here and is his rest is -- can Ohio ever come back in the Democratic column?

EVERETT: So, two different answers. I don't think he could have done anything different. He raised gobs of money. He was totally out distance at the top of the ticket by Kamala Harris. He was dragging him down. He over performed, as you just saw in that graphic. You all put up significantly, the second highest over performer.

And in the end, he did a little better than Tim Ryan did in 2022, but clearly there's a little bit of a lid on Democrats performance there. But if you're looking ahead to the next election, and there's already some pressure on Sherrod Brown to run again, right?

Because he's going to be one of the -- even if he lost, he's still one of the -- one of -- if not the strongest candidate they could possibly put up in the special election to replace J. D. Vance. I think Democrats should take that race seriously. That's been a more competitive state in these Senate races than like Florida has, which is hard to imagine, 10, 12, 14 years ago.

RAJU: And I asked him if he's going to consider running. He said, I'm not dismissing anything at this point. So, we'll see what he decides to do. There'll be pressures, Burgess said, to get him to run.

All right, next. Results just in from two of the last three remaining House races. How will that affect the Republicans razor thin House majority and where do Democrats go from here?

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