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Inside Politics

Trump Picks Loyalist Kash Patel To Be Next FBI Director; Race For DNC Chair Heats Up After Party's Sweeping Loss. Musk and Ramaswamy to Meet with House GOP This Week; Interview with Ark Invest CEO & Founder Cathie Wood; GOP Plotting Ambitious Agenda with Razor-Thin House Majority; Landmark Transgender Rights Case Reaches Supreme Court. Aired 8-9a ET

Aired December 01, 2024 - 08:00   ET

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

[08:00:35]

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

(MUSIC)

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST (voice-over): Bombshell pick. President-elect Trump chooses a new FBI director.

KASH PATEL, TRUMP LOYALIST: We're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.

RAJU: Controversial loyalist Kash Patel. Can he get confirmed? What will he do if he is?

My panel of experts will break it all down.

And the Elon effect. Elon Musk celebrates Thanksgiving at Mar-a-Lago as the Tesla CEO gears up for his new role.

ELON MUSK, TESLA CEO: There's so much government waste. We have to radically reduce the amount of government spending.

RAJU: How will he shape the future of government? Tesla and SpaceX investor Cathie Wood will join me live.

Plus, Democrats search for a path forward. Who will they choose to lead their party in the new Trump era? I'll ask Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler.

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. President-elect, Donald Trump's stunning Saturday evening announcement

is sending shockwaves through Washington and will put Senate Republicans in a bind as they return to the Capitol tomorrow and confront this question whether to confirm Kash Patel, a controversial MAGA firebrand, to head the FBI.

Now, Patel is a Trump loyalist who has risen to prominence -- prominence on the hard right, and he's previously vowed to go after what he believes is a deep state government conspiracy against Trump. Now, this is a norm breaking move. FBI directors serve a ten year term, all intended to insulate themselves from political pressure and changes in administrations.

But Trump seems ready to fire the FBI director that he himself appointed in 2017, Christopher Wray, who has three years left on his term. All of this after Trump's repeated promises to investigate and prosecute -- prosecute his political opponents.

Now, also this weekend, Trump's pick for defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, found himself engulfed in controversy again, while Trump named his ambassador to France, Charles Kushner, who previously served in prison after pleading guilty to federal charges and, oh, by the way, he's also the father of Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law.

But let's start with the Kash Patel news and CNN's Zach Cohen, who has been leading the way on this story.

So, Zach, tell us what kind of impact Patel would have on the FBI if confirmed.

ZACH COHEN, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY REPORTER: Yeah, Manu, Kash Patel has certainly shown he knows how to talk the talk. As far as saying all the things Trump would want to hear from a prospective FBI director nominee. And look, that includes things like pledging to turn the FBI headquarters into a, quote, museum of the deep state on day one in the job. He's also promised to come after Trump's political enemies, both in the government and in the media.

And so, loyalty is really Kash Patel's number one qualification and the reason behind -- the overwhelming reason behind Trump's decision to announce that he wants to install him as the FBI director and what form or fashion that could take remains to be seen. But as you said, Kash Patel is not just a controversial figure outside of Trump's orbit, but some of those people close to him have privately raised questions, not only about Kash Patel's stated views and the way that he wants to run the FBI, but also about his competency, questioning if he actually is capable of carrying out the kind of sweeping changes at the bureau that he's promised to do in various interviews.

But ultimately, this selection really does underscore the influence of people like Steve Bannon and folks on the right of Trump's orbit who have been supporting and publicly pushing Kash Patel for this job. Elon Musk weighing in and seemingly endorsing Kash Patel as the FBI director pick on X just a couple of weeks ago so really, this is coming to a head with this announcement from Donald Trump. It remains to be seen if and when, though Chris Wray will ultimately

get fired or voluntarily resign. Donald Trump cannot push Chris Wray out until he's sworn in as president on January 20th. And as you said, these ten year terms for FBI directors are designed to really insulate them from political influence. But it seems like Trump wants to install somebody who is the exact opposite and was willing to carry out his political agenda.

RAJU: Yeah. And a carefully worded statement, of course, from that, from the FBI last night, not saying, as you were saying whether he will resign or potentially stay there and be fired by Donald Trump. We'll see what Trump decides to do with Christopher Wray, who has three years left on his term.

Zach Cohen, thanks so much for breaking that down and for your reporting really appreciate it.

Now my panel now joins me to discuss all of this. "The Boston Globe's" Jackie Kucinich, "Semafor's" David Weigel, CNN's Stephen Collinson, and "USA Today's" Susan Page.

Good morning, everybody. Happy post-Thanksgiving. A busy news weekend and a holiday weekend and a significant one, too.

So, Stephen Collinson, you write a lot of big picture analyses and reports for CNN. What is the picture that Trump is trying to paint here with his Pam Bondi -- he wanted Matt Gaetz, of course, to be the attorney general. That didn't happen.

But Pam Bondi is very much a Trump loyalist. And if she gets the job, she would have obviously be in charge of law enforcement here in the policy for this country. Kash Patel, too, if he's in the FBI director.

What is Trump? What does it say to you about what is Trump is trying to do with such critical law enforcement agency?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Well, Kash Patel would be the FBI director that Donald Trump has dreamed of ever since he said to James Comey 2017. I need loyalty, I expect loyalty.

He thinks the FBI should be an instrument of presidential power not an independent agency. So given what the president-elect has said, given what Kash Patel has said, notably on Steve Bannon's podcast webcast, YouTube, whatever it is, there's no way, I think, to see this in any other way than the fact that this would be -- the Kash Patel would be an agent of the president-elect's retribution agenda, which he talked about on the campaign.

That therefore, given the fact that the FBI is such a crucial agency in terms of combating crime terrorism, et cetera, that poses a very big question to Republican senators who are going to have to confirm him.

RAJU: No question about it. And speaking of the things that he has said, just a taste of some of the comments he's made in public over the last several months. (BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

PATEL: I'd shut down the FBI Hoover Building on day one and reopening the next day as a museum of the deep state, and I take the 7,000 employees that work in that building and send them across America to chase down criminals. Go be cops. Your cops, go be cops.

We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government, but in the media. Yes, we're going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections. We're going to come after you, whether it's criminal or civil. We'll figure that out. But yeah, we're putting you all on notice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: Now, is this just rhetoric from someone from the outside, or is this something that he can actually implement from the inside?

SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, USA TODAY: Well, it was rhetoric from the outside, but it becomes policy making on the inside. The FBI director, especially backed up by the president, would have considerable power to for instance, change the rules that have been talked about negotiated, not exactly negotiated, but discussed between the news media and the Justice Department about how you go after reporters and journalists, how do you pursue leaks, investigations -- those arrangements that were designed to protect newsgathering, there's no guarantee that those would continue.

RAJU: And there are people who know, you know, as Zach was reporting, he's controversial, not just among Democrats, but among Republicans, too. Just Bill Barr who was, of course, Trump's attorney general wrote in -- about Kash Patel in his book, said, I categorically opposed making Patel deputy FBI director. I told Mark Meadows it would happen over my dead body.

Bill Barr the attorney general, goes on to say the very idea of moving Patel into a role like this showed a shocking detachment from reality, referring to Trump.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: So Trump had tried to, as you say there, instill him as the -- it had been floated to him for him to be the deputy director of the FBI. He also at one point reportedly wanted to make him the deputy director of the CIA. And Gina Haspel at the time, his CIA director, threatened to resign. And I think only Mike Pence was the one who was able to settle that particular dispute.

There was a whole range of national security officials in the last Trump administration that didn't want Kash Patel near any of this. Now, the question is, what does the Senate say? That's -- that's where this ball is going, right? Whether -- whether or not they're going to be able to acquiesce to this.

And now there's a whole range of people that we could be a coin flip on, whether they are going to be confirmed or not. And is this going to be one of the one of the nominees that you know, that that the Republican senators use their, their chits for?

RAJU: And one thing it cannot be overstated, this is a norm-busting move.

KUCINICH: Yeah.

RAJU: Presidents don't do this coming in because of the fact that the FBI is supposed to be apolitical. It's not supposed to be impacted. And of course, Trump fired the last FBI director, James Comey, back in 2017. Then he appointed Christopher Wray because Comey was investigating -- was launching the Russia investigation, was investigating Trump and his family even though they contended at the time it was all because of the way Comey handled the Clinton email controversy.

Just a flashback to how Republican senators dealt with that at that time, including the late Senator John McCain

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

[08:10:02]

RAJU: Why were you disappointed in the decision to fire Mr. Comey?

SEN. JOHN MCCAIN (R-AZ): Because I believe that Mr. Comey is a good man, and I think he did his job well, and I don't think he deserved to be fired.

When you fire probably arguably the most respected person in America, you'd better have a very good explanation. And so far, I haven't seen that.

RAJU: You don't buy the Clinton email explanation that he mishandled the Clinton emails. That's why he was fired.

MCCAIN: I don't believe that that is sufficient rationale for removing the director of the FBI.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

RAJU: But they claim they had a reason back then for firing James Comey, even though they didn't seem to be the legitimate reason. But there's really no reason for getting rid of Christopher Wray right now coming into the Trump administration.

DAVID WEIGEL, SEMAFOR NATIONAL POLITICAL REPORTER: If you talk to conservatives, social conservatives, the people who've wanted -- who've said that the media is soft on the FBI during a Democratic administration, their argument is, well, there are different targets that we don't talk about. Look at the pro-life groups that are being investigated by this FBI. We turn that around and say that other people.

So the way that they -- you saw it in Patel's interviews, the way they conceive of this role is that is not that it is independent, it's that Democrats pretend it's independent and don't act that way that would be a surprise to Joe Biden, who has presided over a main justice that put his son -- I should say sentenced his son to prison, that he appointed a special counsel that produced a report that badly damaged his reelection, played a role in ending it. Democrats believe they have played by these rules, and they have not leaned on this.

This is the power of narrative. This is nine years of Republicans saying that there never should be any investigation of Donald Trump in 2016, I should say and that if we get the reins of power, we're going to use the endless power of the state to go after them because they think it's been done to them.

RAJU: And meanwhile, there was another controversial decision that Trump made over the weekend that came right before this, was to name Charles Kushner as ambassador to France.

Now, just a reminder, Charles Kushner is the father of Jared Kushner, Trump's son in law. Kushner had pleaded guilty back in 2005 to federal crimes, including 16 counts of tax evasion, witness tampering, illegal campaign contributions. Trump then pardoned Kushner on his way out of office after the 2020 elections.

And this is what Chris Christie, who was the U.S. attorney in New Jersey at the time -- actually prosecuted Charles Kushner said about Kushner's crimes.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

FORMER GOV. CHRIS CHRISTIE (R), NEW JERSEY: I mean, if a guy hires a prostitute to seduce his brother in law and videotapes it and then sends the videotape to his sister to attempt to intimidate her from testifying before a grand jury, do I really need any more justification than that?

I mean, it's one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes that I prosecuted when I was U.S. attorney.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PAGE: You know, Senate Republicans are going to have to play triage, though on who they're going to confirm or not. And I think Kushner will have no problem at all getting confirmed as ambassador to France. There's kind of a tradition there.

But Senate Republicans will have to decide, do they want to go after Tulsi Gabbard or do they want to go after --

RAJU: Hegseth?

PAGE: Pete Hegseth? I mean, there's an array of nominees that they find controversial. They're not going to go after all of them. They may not even go after one of them. They have no history of standing up to Donald Trump. We'll see if they're willing to do that.

RAJU: It's such a good point. It's hard to take one position against the president. It's hard to do. Two, take positions against the president, especially as he's trying to form his government. That's going to be a big point of contention coming in.

All right. Coming up, Democrats are searching for a path forward after Republicans swept control of Washington last month. The first step, find a new party leader. My next guest is debating getting into the ring. I'll ask him if he's made a decision. That's next.

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[08:18:10]

RAJU: As Republicans are preparing for unified government, Democrats are just trying to pick up the pieces, trying to figure out what went wrong and how to rebuild a coalition that Donald Trump has picked apart.

The next chairman of the Democratic National Committee will play a big role in that task.

Joining me now is Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

And, Ben, I know you've been considering entering the race for DNC chairman.

So are you running?

BEN WIKLER, CHAIRMAN, DEMOCRATIC PARTY OF WISCONSIN: Manu, it's great to join you this morning. I'm running for chair of the Democratic National Committee because we need to unite. We need to fight, and we need to win to stop the GOP from ripping this country apart and ripping off working people to enrich mega billionaires who funded Trump's campaign.

This is a time for Democrats to come together, to learn about what we need to do and change, and to start winning elections up and down the ballot for the next four years.

RAJU: But, you know, what do you say to some people, maybe your opponents might say, look, you were a leader, a party leader in a state that Kamala Harris lost. She lost in Wisconsin in 2024. So why give him a promotion?

WIKLER: Well, the thing about the last four years is that we've seen a Republican Party that in Wisconsin came in and tried to dismantle our democracy, robbed, working people, smashed unions, attacked public schools, restricted voting rights and Democrats organized united and fought back.

And over these last four years, we've won election after election, Biden in 2020, Governor Evers in 2022. We flipped our state Supreme Court majority. This year, we had the smallest swing of any battleground state in the country, just one and a half points towards Trump. It was the closest state in the Union and at the same time, we turned out more votes and won our U.S. Senate race for Tammy Baldwin and flipped 14 state legislative seats. This is a purple, intense state. And what it teaches you when you

fight in a state like Wisconsin is how to organize everywhere in rural areas, cities suburbs, small towns across race ethnicity, gender, geography, generation ideology. It teaches you to communicate even to voters who may not be paying attention to what Democrats have to say.

We know that we lose when voters get their information about Democrats from Republicans. So we need to level up the intensity, the omnipresence of our fight. And we need to communicate directly to working folks no matter what they look like or where they live about how were on their side. And the Republicans are trying to rip them off.

RAJU: So, you know, obviously, the big question is going to be for the next Democratic national committee chairman to figure out what went wrong for the party trying to fix all the problems that were very apparent in this election cycle.

So, for you, if you were DNC chairman, what would you say is the biggest problem Democrats have to fix right now in order to appeal to voters and win elections?

WIKLER: The central problem is that voters -- many voters have internalized this idea that Democrats are not on their side. They're not fighting for working families every day. They have other agendas. That is, the Republicans line of attack.

And for Democrats, we show who we are through our actions and through how and where we communicate. We know that most Americans agree with Democrats that our economy should work for working people that every person should have the fundamental freedom and dignity and respect that should be every Americans birthright. And we know that if we don't go where the voters are, if we don't communicate in language that hits home, that that demonstrates that we understand the economic pain that people feel, the fear that people feel now about what Trump and his administration plan to do, to try to attack them and to show that were on their side and show who Republicans are for.

If we don't do that, then we're going to lose. But if we do do that, we can win as we've done over and over. We came up short in an election where voters, the voters who turned out, who had not voted in the last few elections, who moved towards Trump overwhelmingly, what we see in exit polls is that their frustration was around high prices at a moment when pandemic era economic support had slipped away, while Trump plans to jack up peoples prices, he plans a multi-trillion dollar tax cut for the very wealthiest people in the country that will ultimately be paid for by working families. That is not popular remotely popular. And if we want to defeat it we have to be very clear who were for and make that case.

RAJU: And so, you know, were now headed into a position where Democrats are going to be in the minority in the House and the Senate. And the question is how should they position themselves in the minority? Should Republicans, Democrats essentially be the resistance, like they were in the first Trump term, or and when you look at the nomination like Kash Patel to lead the FBI, what should Democrats do to position themselves to be doing everything they can to stop this confirmation?

WIKLER: I think Democrats know that when we fight, we demonstrate who were for, and we have to explain why were fighting what Republicans are trying to do. I think on nominations, we have a chance to make the case that the Trump administration is poised to be the most corrupt administration in the last 100 years in the United States of America, that it is going to try to use government to get into peoples personal lives and pursue political agendas and vendettas that have nothing to do with what voters actually want to see their elected leaders do.

Now, we've seen this movie before. Last time when Trump was in power, they came for health care and they passed a multi-trillion dollar tax cut for the ultra wealthy that was hideously unpopular. And Democrats won the majority in 2018.

If you go back to 2004, Republicans came in in 2004, tried to privatize Social Security and then fell down in a in a debacle of corruption. The Democrats fought back against. We need to draw those contrasts show what were for, and also cast a spotlight on what Republicans are doing that is so far off base from what voters in this country actually want.

RAJU: And very quickly, as we wrap and should you could have a sense you could help dictate the primary calendar for the Democratic Party. Would you support changing the states who are the order of the states, not make South Carolina the first state in the primary calendar?

WIKLER: My platform in this campaign is unite, fight and win. Part of uniting is a conversation in the party. We want to hear from everyone about how we ensure that our nominee is poised to win the general election, how we honor our coalition and the traditions of our party and plan for victory.

So, as the chair of the DNC, I'll be helping bring together a conversation with the key states and all the DNC members across the country, if you're a DNC member, I'd look forward to a chance to try to earn your vote.

And for all Democrats, this is the time for us to map out in every aspect of what we do, how we contain the damage that Trump and the Republicans are going to try to inflict and then win elections in all 50 states, in all the territories around the world, around the country, and then win down ballot, up ballot all the way to a Democratic trifecta nationally and in as many states as possible over the next four years.

RAJU: Well, I didn't hear the answer to the primary calendar question, but perhaps there'll be something you'll address later on if you get the job.

Ben Wikler making some news running for the DNC chairman position. Thank you so much for joining INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY.

[08:25:01]

Appreciate your time. WIKLER: Thanks so much.

RAJU: All right. My panel is back.

Dave Weigel, you cover this very closely. There are lots of candidates in this race, at least several right now. What do you think of his chances to win?

WEIGEL: Oh, very serious candidate. Ken Martin, the chair of the Minnesota DFL came in the race with a lot of state party chairs behind him. They all also like Wikler, and there are people who are not fans of Martin who are fans of Wikler.

You asked him about the why somebody in a state that didn't vote for Kamala Harris should be the chair, which is a good question. But in Martin's Minnesota, the Democratic vote dropped from 2020 to '24, and it rose in Wisconsin. They just found more Republicans.

And finally, the point he's making, he kept making to you about what we need to explain what we're fighting for. That framing I think Democrats agree with parts of it. But he is unifying the Sanders wing of the party, which I feel is more isolated than ever.

It doesn't really have a role in this next fight that says, the problem is you listen too much to big donors. Mark Cuban, Tony West, and to activists who say, yeah, my neighbors don't know what we stand for anymore.

RAJU: Yeah.

WEIGEL: And this is what Democrats -- he's conveying what a lot of Democrats have said since the election.

RAJU: Yeah. And look, I mean, this election is important because there really is there are questions about who is the leader of this party right now and him -- he's trying to fill that void.

KUCINICH: And which is why the DNC chair is important when you don't have any the -- the head of anything in Washington, right?

RAJU: Yeah, because a lot of people may not know who was under a President Biden, for instance.

KUCINICH: Well, exactly. When there's -- when there's a Democratic president, the DNC chair is not as much in the spotlight. So whoever does take this, they really do have a big job, and they will have a national platform in the way that, you know, perhaps, Jamie Harrison did not, during the Biden years.

COLLINSON: And you heard there the stirrings of an argument for the midterm elections. Populist economics, that's how they got to take on Trump we're seeing a cabinet of billionaires and multi-millionaires, presumably, are going to have conflicts of interests and scandals and he also went on to talk about that, that personal issue of the president and that will be what's on the ballot in the midterm elections. PAGE: But a bigger challenge than the last time Trump won, because

when Trump won in 2016, Democrats were outraged and surprised and alarmed and we saw those huge that huge march on Washington and a determination to fight him everywhere they could.

You don't see that today. You see Democrats discouraged, disheartened. That is going to be job one whoever gets to chair the DNC.

RAJU: You saw some fiery rhetoric from him. I asked him about the Trump resistance 2.0. It sounded like he kind of wanted. That is the way the Democrats should position themselves going forward. We'll see what happens. That election is on February 1st.

All right. Coming up, Trump's billionaire best buddy heads to Capitol Hill this week. How will the Trump Musk friendship shake up Washington and the world's economy?

Tesla and SpaceX investor Cathie Wood joins us live with her expertise.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:32:10]

MANU RAJU, CNN HOST: There are a lot of questions in Washington about Elon Musk's role in Donald Trump's new government. Yes, Musk, along with Vivek Ramaswamy, are tapped with making deep cuts to federal agencies, and they head to Capitol Hill this week to meet with Republicans on that effort.

But the world's richest person has been a persistent presence at Mar- a-Lago since election day speaking with foreign leaders like Ukrainian President Zelenskyy and sitting next to Trump at Thanksgiving dinner. So what should we expect from this new alliance?

Here to share her insights is Tesla and SpaceX investor Cathie Wood, the CEO and founder of Ark Invest.

Cathie, thank you so much for joining me this morning. Really appreciate your time.

CATHIE WOOD, CEO/FOUNDER, ARK INVEST: so thank you very much, Manu. Very -- great to see you.

RAJU: Absolutely. And you know, Elon Musk well. You understand his vision. But the question so many people have is what is he trying to get from his relationship with Donald Trump? I'm wondering what your sense is of that.

WOOD: Well, I think Elon Musk is a problem solver and it's clear that we have a lot of problems in the country that actually technology can help solve, especially now that we're in the A.I. age.

I think your viewers understand what that means more now because of ChatGPT. But A.I. is the most powerful platform shift -- technology. platform shift -- in history. And we think it's going to do a lot of very good things including bringing efficiencies not only to government, but to businesses and to everyday life.

RAJU: Before we get into a little bit more about the A.I. and how Trump should handle that. On the Trump-Musk relationship, obviously, if Trump and Musk remain close perhaps that could be beneficial to SpaceX and Tesla.

But I guess the question is what if the relationship gets strained? I mean Trump is known to lash out, of course, when things go sideways.

Is that a risk for Elon Musk's companies if they have a falling out?

WOOD: Well I think that if you look at Elon Musk's companies, what they're doing is taking us into this new age, whether its Tesla with autonomous mobility and robo-taxis or SpaceX, you know, really getting us to the moon again and then to Mars. I think these are things that President Trump wants.

They both have very strong personalities. That is why they are who they are and why they've accomplished so much in their lives. And I think they both know the risks associated with such strong personalities.

They have -- they're going to keep their eye on the prize, which is really trying to use these technologies to transform not only not only transportation but I think in particular healthcare.

[08:34:56]

WOOD: And that is why Vivek Ramaswamy partnered with Elon Musk is such an interesting choice. They're both very focused on technology, which is accelerating research and discovering new drugs, diagnosing disease before stage one, let's say in cancer, and actually curing disease.

These are concepts that are foreign but that -- to traditional health care but now are evolving. And we think really will transform the way the world works.

RAJU: Now Trump is considering naming a crypto czar and an A.I. czar, and you're someone who's invested a lot of time, energy and money into these industries. So what exactly should he do to regulate these growing technologies? And are you at all concerned about him potentially picking winners and losers in all of this?

WOOD: Well, I think the idea behind czars is to really change the way things have been done in Washington around technology during the last four years.

I think the biggest problem we have is regulation. Too much regulation and we as a country, the U.S., almost lost our footing in the cryptocurrency world, and we call it digital assets. It's that's a more understandable name because chairman Gary Gensler at the SEC, didn't think it was safe or what have you.

And so we drove a lot of talent away from the United States. We think that's going to change with a focus on crypto and A.I. There are five major platforms evolving in the world today. I

mentioned A.I. as the biggest platform shift. Crypto or we call it blockchain technology. Digital assets is the second. Robotics, energy storage and multiomic sequencing.

Those are all technology platforms that the U.S. must seize and harness really, and lead the way, much like we did in the Internet. We were about to lose that given our regulatory system. And I think a change in the regulatory system with both crypto and A.I. as prime focuses, is going to be quite meaningful.

R2: So you're obviously an expert in the ups and downs of the stock market. I'm wondering what you think about Trump's proposed tariffs. You know, he has said on the campaign trail he would impose tariffs on 100 percent of imports.

And just last week he threatened tariffs on China, Mexico and on Canada. Do you think that the tariffs would lead to market volatility this time around.

WOOD: I think they already have in a way, industries that are potentially threatened have been hurt in the market.

But if you're -- if you've been watching President Trump over the last few weeks, he's actually reaching out to these leaders, or better said, they are reaching out to him, especially Mexico and Canada, two of our largest trading partners. And they want to help President Trump deal with some of the problems that are -- that he is really focused on.

Immigration, of course, is one; drugs is another way outside of what I do. But they're at the table. That's the most important thing.

The other thing I would say is, tariffs are tax increases. I'm not a fan of any tax increases, personally. But if they are offset by tax cuts, which is how the U.S. was run in its very early days, President Washington, for example ran the country that way. That does make some sense to us.

RAJU: And before we go, what is your projection for how the stock market under Trump will look like, including for major investments? Things that you've been involved with like Tesla and bitcoin.

WOOD: I think that the stock market already is starting to discount a change. If you look at what happened in the last four years, we saw massive concentration towards very few stocks.

I think the markets going to broaden out right now. And reward companies who are at the leading edge of innovation, not those -- just those who have already been very successful.

So we're excited about that. We think it's going to help small and medium businesses. We think that the impact on low- and middle-income earners is underestimated here. And that will also develop into a broadening out of the stock market's gains.

[08:39:48]

WOOD: So we're pretty positive. Of course, nothing goes up in a straight line. I don't want to pretend that but we're quite positive about the outlook for the next few years.

RAJU: All right. Cathie Wood, thank you so much for joining me this morning and providing your expertise. Really appreciate your time.

WOOD: Thank you, Manu. It's a pleasure.

(CROSSTALKING)

RAJU: Coming up, Donald Trump is planning an ambitious 100-day agenda. But can any of it pass if just one House Republican breaks ranks?

We'll be right back with more.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[08:44:53]

RAJU: House Republicans this week will return to Washington with ambitious plans to push through an aggressive agenda starting in January. But there's just one problem. They may have an even thinner majority than they have right now.

One race is still outstanding in California's 13th congressional district, where Democrat Adam Gray is clinging to the narrowest of leads in a bid to knock off GOP incumbent John Duarte.

And three GOP resignations are coming in the first weeks of the new year. That would put the Republican majority at 217 and 215 until special elections fill those seats. Meaning even just one GOP defection could scuttle their carefully drawn-out plans in the first 100 days.

My panel is back.

This is pretty remarkable. Any one Republican could be a Joe Manchin.

JACKIE KUCINICH, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Manchin. We were just saying that during the break. Yes, it's a lot of power. And just think about how the inability to get stuff done, even when they had a slightly larger majority this Congress.

Because when you have -- with particularly some of these conservatives, when they have more power, as you know that one member who can affect change, they're not going to relinquish it for the good of the team. They didn't do it last time. Even if Trump is president, it's going to be fascinating.

RAJU: It really is. And look, just there are lots of Republicans in swing districts. Some in districts that Joe Biden carried back in 2020. They won their reelection. Just look on your screen.

There are 11 who remain in the House from those Biden 2020 districts. Those are the swing -- the swing votes here that Mike Johnson will have to worry about if they move to the right.

DAVID WEIGEL, NATIONAL POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: They are. And on the other side, they have expanded their map in Hispanic districts especially. There are places that they're going to try to compete in the next midterm.

They're going to have some culture war and some test legislation that's going to embarrass Democrats.

The flip side is that there are some of these big ideas coming out of the Elon shop. If you put them into legislation, you put them in reconciliation might become a problem like the tax bill was and like Obamacare repeal was when they had, as you point out, a larger Republican majority.

This is something where Don Bacon can sink a bill if they convince Don Bacon, it's not his interest to pass something.

RAJU: Yes. If they don't pressure him enough to break, to fall in line. We'll see how members will deal with that.

There's also the question about whether -- about the question about overreaching, right. Every majority comes in thinking they have such a strong mandate to do a lot for the American public here.

Just look at the list of popular vote victory margins really, since 1980 down to Trump. Trump is on the lower end of this popular vote victory. Yes, he was the first Republican president to win the popular vote since Bush in 2004. But right now it's at 1.6 percent. That is much lower than, say, Biden even was in 2020.

How is that going to be -- do you think the Trump team is going to say, all right, maybe we should recalibrate our ambitions in any way, given the narrowness of the margins? Or are they going to push -- go as far as --

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SUSAN PAGE, WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF, U.S.A. TODAY: But what would be Trump's predisposition on that question? Is it to moderate or to push forward?

You know, 220 is not a mandate. 220 is a prayer. It's a prayer you can hold your people together. And you see these moderates newly- empowered. The Freedom Caucus has been powerful before.

This handful of moderates -- Don Bacon, Mike Lawler -- they have it within their power to demand that Trump moderate. Let's see if he's willing to do that.

RAJU: Does Trump have a mandate?

STEPHEN COLLINSON, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: He thinks he does. I mean, we've seen over the last two decades presidents come in and they all think they have a massive mandate. There is a palpable understanding among Republicans that this may be just two years, and they've got to get as much done as they can.

But to the margin, you know, passing tax bills are really hard when you've got a decent majority. Those moderates -- if Johnson had a majority of say 25, he could give them a pass. They could vote against certain aspects that are unpopular in their blue states.

They can't do that. That's real tension in the Republican Caucus.

KUCINICH: But the difference between moderates and the conservatives, the conservatives have been willing to use their power. They've been really willing to push the envelope and to push Johnson. The question is, will the moderates do it?

RAJU: And you know, the question is to, you know Kash Patel some people may say that's a bit of an overreach for Trump to go this far. but he also campaigned on doing exactly what he's suggesting he will do, which is name people like Kash Patel to the FBI.

WEIGEL: Oh yes. Not a problem in the House. I think some of this was discussed in your -- in the segment with Wikler as Democrats are more confident fighting on are these people that Trump appointed going to fight for you or are they getting revenge for him? Are they going to help their bottom line or help you?

That's the framework they're going to have for all for all these fights in the House. They're pretty comfortable -- comfortable is not a word I would assign Democrats that much over the last week, but a 215 seats where everyone is pretty comfortable making that -- that message not as bad a position they thought they'd be in two weeks ago.

RAJU: It's easier to be in the minority to unite than it is in the majority.

WEIGEL: Yes.

RAJU: We'll see how the majority does next year.

All right. Up next, the cultural flashpoint over transgender rights gets its first big moment at the Supreme Court. What to watch in this week's landmark oral arguments.

That's ahead.

[08:49:41]

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RAJU: Before we go, this week marks a pivotal moment in the battle over transgender rights. In just days, the Supreme Court will take the bench to consider its biggest transgender rights case yet.

At stake, a Tennessee state law that bans puberty blockers and hormone treatment for transgender minors. More than two dozen states have similar laws on the books, but the case is pitting some conservatives against their own familiar rallying cry -- parental rights.

[08:54:49]

RAJU: Now, that's been the cornerstone of GOP-led legal battles on issues like abortion and education. But now when it comes to health care for transgender children, conservatives say, well, that's a different question.

Now the issue has become a cultural flashpoint. Just this week, Boise State withdrew from a women's volleyball tournament amid a controversy over the gender of an opposing player.

And on Capitol Hill, House Republicans banned transgender individuals, including Congresswoman-Elect Sarah McBride from using their preferred bathrooms.

Now, the nine justices will hear the historic oral arguments on Wednesday, and you can, of course, follow CNN for all the latest.

That's it for INSIDE POLITICS SUNDAY. You can follow me on X @mkraju, follow the show on INSIDE POLITICS and 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". Guests include national security adviser Jake Sullivan, plus Congressmen Mike Lawler and Jamie Raskin.

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

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