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Inside Politics

Trump Finishes First News Conference Since Winning Re-election; Trump: Defends RFK Jr. On Vaccines: "He's Got A Very Open Mind"; Trump Slams "Corrupt" Media Outlets For Critical Coverage. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 16, 2024 - 12:30   ET

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

[12:30:00]

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: Thanks, Alayna.

I just want to go back before I get to you, Daniel. I'm going to do a little Daniel Dale right now and say that while the president-elect was speaking and saying what you just played, alleging that the government knows, suggesting that there is something nefarious going on and that he knows that.

I was texting with a senior administration official who said that they did an interagency briefing on this yesterday, and they were told that it is a mix of fixed-wing aircraft with pilots, commercial drones, law enforcement replacing old police choppers, and recreational. Nothing anomalous found, 1 million registered drones in the U.S., 8,000 in the sky every day.

So that is what the administration is saying on the drones. There's so much more to talk about, but because he weighed in and leaned into and explicitly said that President Biden knows what's going on here and that he suggested he wasn't even interested in going to Bedminster, his club in New Jersey, because that's where most of them were, it's important to say what the current administration, who has the active people looking at this, are saying.

OK, Daniel, I'm going to go to you now and talk about something so incredibly crucial, which is Robert Kennedy Jr.'s stance on vaccines and mandates, and by extension, more importantly, what the president- elect's views and comments were on vaccines.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: I think everything should be looked at, but I'm a big believer in the polio vaccine.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think schools should mandate vaccines?

TRUMP: I don't like mandates. I'm not a big mandate person. So, you know, I was against mandates. Mostly Democrat governors did the mandates, and they did a very poor thing.

(END VIDEOCLIP) BASH: OK, so Daniel, there it seems like he was asked about all vaccines, and his answer appeared to be focused on COVID. But he also talked pretty extensively about other vaccines, the ones that have been in place for decades, particularly for young people, as a mandate to go to school.

He talked about polio, for example. So talk about what he said there and give us a bit of a fact check, which is so crucial.

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: Sure. So there was a lot of lying from the president-elect at this press conference, but I think the most dangerous part was an equivocation. It wasn't really a claim, but he was asked whether he thought there was a link between vaccines and autism, and he equivocated.

He said, well, we have some brilliant people looking at this, and he talked about the increased prevalence of autism diagnoses. Look, there is no link between vaccines and autism. This notion has been discredited by study after study over decades. The idea that there is some connection came from a thoroughly discredited, in fact, scandalous, fraudulently altered study in the 1990s that should just be ignored, dismissed again, because it was fraudulent.

And so the idea that, well, we're just going to look into this, I think, is dangerous to consider, because the idea is simply wrong. I'll pivot to some other topics. He talked, as usual, about tariffs, said under his first presidency, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China.

That money was paid by Americans. It is American importers who pay the tariffs, not Chinese exporters. And many of those importers pass along the cost to U.S. consumers. He said no previous president had tariffs on China. That's wrong.

He said there was no inflation under his own presidency, despite the tariffs, certainly lower than during the Biden presidency. But there was 8 percent cumulative inflation during his presidency, so nothing.

In talking about health, he also said, oh, Europe has lower mortality than us or better mortality, and they don't use pesticides. Europe uses hundreds of thousands of tons of pesticides every year. So I'm not sure where he got that idea.

And earlier in the press conference, Dana, he said over and over, I think three times, that during his presidency there were no wars, like no wars, period, in the world. That is simply not true, a rewriting of history.

One research institution said there were active armed conflicts in about 50 states in 2020, including, of course, civil wars in Yemen, in Syria, in Somalia. We had an active Israeli-Palestinian conflict, U.S. troops deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and elsewhere. So the idea that this was a world at peace left by Donald Trump to Joe Biden, simply not true.

BASH: OK, well, thank you for all that. And I just want to underscore where you and I started our conversation, Daniel, which is on the suggestion that it is possible that autism is caused by vaccines. As you said, there was a 1998 study that has been completely discredited.

There have been rigorous peer-reviewed studies that have not -- that are credible, including some that analyzed more than 1 million children that have shown there is no link between autism and vaccines.

[12:35:08]

Thank you so much for that. Don't go anywhere because there is a lot more to discuss from Donald Trump's extensive news conference, the first of its kind since Election Day. A very talented group of reporters is here with me at the table. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:40:02]

BASH: Welcome back to Inside Politics. Here at the table to discuss what we just saw out of Mar-a-Lago is an outstanding group of reporters, CNN's Manu Raju, CNN's MJ Lee, Andrew Egger of The Bulwark and Hans Nichols of Axios. There is a lot to break down.

Manu, I'm going to start with you for a lot of reasons, mostly because you run around Capitol Hill all the time and you have good sense of how people who he needs feel about a lot of his priorities, starting with his nominees.

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Yes, look, there's these changes coming to Washington. I mean, it's very clear that Donald Trump's second term is the first time we've heard really him extensively answer questions about a whole wide range of topics, whether it's Ukraine, because that's one of the big things that people on Capitol Hill are very much concerned about.

What will happen next? And suggesting that perhaps Ukraine would have to cede territory to Russia. You talked a lot about the vaccines comments that he made with RFK Jr. That's going to be a big focus of how Republican senators and Democratic senators deal with RFK Jr.

He suggested that RFK Jr. would have really wide latitude in a lot of ways, saying that, you know, well, I support the polio vaccine, but we're going to take a look at everything, that sort of thing. And RFK Jr. put out a report on vaccines.

So that suggests there's going to be a lot of power given to him and also discipline, putting -- imposing discipline on Republican senators, even suggesting that some could face primary challenges if they break ranks with him, saying that, well, I'm not going to do anything about it, but I'm sure they will if they are acting unreasonable. Really a warning sign to his party and really a sign of everything that's to come here.

MJ LEE, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: And if this wasn't a great encapsulation, I think, of an emboldened and a confident Donald Trump, it was really interesting hearing him talk about the first time that he did this. He said, everybody was fighting me back then, but now people want to get along with me.

He understands and he has spent weeks now basically holding court at Mar-a-Lago as everybody from foreign leaders, to business leaders, to party leaders have come through to say to him, I want to work with you. I want to work for you. What can we do together?

And particularly for a man who we know is, you know, very much enjoys being flattered, likes being told that he is doing a good job to get these kinds of messages of congratulations. I think he clearly is taking stock of the fact that this time Washington is going to be different.

Can I just also know, you know, Manu, you said this is the first time that he has really taken questions from reporters since the election. That was one more press conference than the sitting President Joe Biden has had since the election.

He has had two lengthy foreign trips where he basically did not engage at all with members of the press. And he has yet to take questions on important issues that Donald Trump just took questions on, including foreign policy, including the drone situation, including the murder of a healthcare CEO.

So there's a big difference here. Clearly Donald Trump is the clear leader of the party right now. I don't know that Democrats feel like they have one.

ANDREW EGGER, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, THE BULWARK: Yes. And when you put yourself kind of in the shoes of a Republican senator or a business leader, you know, one of these people who are -- who Donald Trump is saying, wow, they're being a lot nicer to me this time around. It's, you know, you listen to that press conference and it's pretty clear why, because he does not give sort of very specific guidelines for these people other than, you know, like to the senators.

You know, it's OK if they oppose my nominees as long as they're doing it for a reasonable reason, right? But then you hear him talk about, you know, the other reasons why certain members of the media, he's going to go after them with lawsuits or even, even with, you know, criminal investigations, things like that.

And it becomes clear, OK, what Donald Trump means by reasonable reasons are reasons that don't really kind of get under his skin according to whatever sort of ad hoc rubric he's deciding to apply in a given minute. So you see all of these business leaders, all of these senators, all these people who think, OK, there's really only one safe play here. And it is to just kind of like get in line and go to Mar-a- Lago and shake the hand and meet people.

BASH: Hans, we just heard mention of the very clear shot across the bow at us, those of us in the media. The question was about defamation lawsuits and he went on pretty extensively at saying that he is going to keep an open mind at using that notion of lawsuits against other members of the media mentioned the Des Moines register which put out a poll not long before the election which turned out not to be true. Talked a lot about Russia, even suggested that he would find a way to take away people's Pulitzers who won those very prestigious awards because of their reporting on Russia.

[12:45:04]

And, look, I just want to say, we know what he's trying to do. He's trying to make it so that we're not going to report. We are going to continue to report. But that includes reporting on the warning that he just gave.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: He just put everyone on notice. He's, you know, we can tick through the list of people that he suggested lawsuits against. And I didn't hear a criminal there. I heard civil, but I could be wrong on that.

EGGER: He didn't say it's election interference.

NICHOLS: An election interference --

RAJU: And he said that Justice Department should have looked into it.

NICHOLS: Fair point. Fair points all around. The Des Moines register was very interesting. Remember the opening question here was about that ABC news payment, which was a $15 million payment that Trump won. And that ABC news is going to pay, I believe was in my couches, but I believe he's going -- they're going to be paying that to his potential presidential library.

So Trump feels aggrieved with always with Donald Trump. The quiet part is often out loud. And we actually learned a lot in that press conference. We'd have a clear sense of what his day one priorities are going to be.

It's very clear they're going to be a lot of pardons. They're going to be a lot of executive actions. They're going to be executive orders. This is day one. And then to me, the tariff part was really interesting because he's not backing away from that.

And he's putting all those countries, a, take back your immigrants. But, b, even allies and countries, the United States is close with, they should be expecting tariffs. And Howard Lutnick right next to him, who's going to be this sort of overall tariffs are didn't really contradict the president.

BASH: Yes. And I just want to play -- you mentioned this, but I think it's worth our viewers hearing again what the president-elect said that really did. I totally agree with you kind of set the tone and was a big tell as to how he is feeling this time versus the first time he became president.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TRUMP: I did have a dinner with Tim Cook. I had a dinner with sort of almost all of them and the rest are coming. And this is one of the big differences I think between -- we were talking about it before. One of the big differences between the first term, and the first term, everybody was fighting me. In this term, everybody wants to be my friend.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: And you really do see that across the board, all of the people, MJ, that you talked about from Mark Zuckerberg going down there to Tim Cook, to world leaders, and especially the members of Congress. I mean, if you think about yesterday, they didn't go to Mar-a-Lago, but Joe Manchin, who's no longer going to be an elected official who has been very outspoken about his disdain for Donald Trump, even though he's no longer a Democrat, even he was at the Army-Navy game in the president-elect suite.

RAJU: Yes. I mean, that's the through line to everything here was loyalty, right? I mean, from yesterday to today, to everything that he's saying going forward is that things are different because people are trying to be nice to me, trying to be friends with me because they know that as the way to try to get something from Donald Trump.

The moment you go crosswise with them, that's when you could face lawsuits. That's when you could face primary challenges. That's when you could face him saying, you know, breaking with you on any individual policy priority of yours.

And that's what the question for me is, how long does that last? When he gets into his administration, when they get to the hard choices of governing, at what point do people start to break ranks? Because they simply disagree and they can't go along with something that he might do that is controversial.

One of the things that he did not take off the table also is blanket pardons --

BASH: Yes.

RAJU: -- for January 6 prisoners. I'd asked the senators about this, including Senator-elect Jim Banks on Friday on this program. I said about the prospects of having, giving a blanket pardon to January 6 prisoners. He said, well, that's not going to happen. I've never heard Donald Trump say that.

And a lot of Republicans don't think he would do that, but he didn't take that off the table. And if he goes that route, will people break with them then? Or will they consider loyalty above all else?

NICHOLS: You know, on all the CEOs going down to kiss the ring and sort of foreign leaders as well, let's be clear, Donald Trump is accurately describing reality. Things have changed.

BASH: Yes.

NICHOLS: We have million dollar checks going to the transition effort coming over the transom from big companies. He also mentioned Jeff Bezos is going to go down to see him. We'll see how that plays in the Washington Post for newsroom.

I don't think anyone here is at the Washington Post, but he is describing the way Washington is reacting, the way corporations are reacting. And he's clearly planning on using it as leverage to advance his agenda.

BASH: All right, everybody stand by. We have a lot more to talk about. I'm going to take a quick break. Don't go anywhere.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:54:08]

BASH: Welcome back. During his press conference, the president-elect was asked about the assassination of the UnitedHealthcare CEO and the response by a lot of people, particularly on social media, applauding the alleged assassin. Listen to what he said.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

TRUMP: That was a terrible thing. It was cold-blooded, just a cold- blooded, horrible killing. And how people can like this guy is -- that's a sickness, actually. That's really very bad, especially the way it was done. It was so bad, right in the back.

And very bad, very -- thing like that, you just -- you can't believe that some people -- and maybe it's fake news. I don't know. It's hard to believe that that can even be thought of. But it seems that there's a certain appetite for him.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: It's not fake news, Hans.

[12:55:03]

NICHOLS: The president-elect is tamping down populist impulses in this country, and he sort of -- is very clear that is a horrific act and he wanted to move on. Little criticism of the media in there. But, you know, to the extent that he knows that some of his supporters were cheering that, I don't know.

I think he was just crystal clear in his denunciation of that. And I think we should sort of accept that and kind of move on.

LEE: Yes, I mean, hard to argue that that wasn't a wholly appropriate thing to say, just very clearly and unequivocally saying this was a terrible thing that happened. I mean, he obviously knows that there are many people across the country that have hailed up this guy, the suspect, as a cultural hero of sorts.

I actually thought it was interesting coming from the incoming president, given that he is so skilled at actually tapping into the anger that a lot of people feel towards the system, whatever that might be. That could be the federal government. It could be the company. So for him to say, actually, there's no equivocating here, there's no yes and the other side, like he basically said, there's not a second side to this.

RAJU: Yes, there's been bipartisan condemnation about this. No question about it. Josh Shapiro was very clear in his condemnation of people trying to applaud this. And Trump, you know, recognizes there's probably only one side to be on this issue, which is to not say that any murder -- to make it clear all murder is bad, no matter the circumstances. And Trump was pretty clear though.

EGGER: Yes, and it was interesting, I mean, slightly after the clip we just played, he made some comments sort of gesturing toward that kind of populist anger, where he said he was kind of glad that it wasn't anything -- it was a little unclear, but it seemed like he was saying he wasn't -- he was glad it wasn't anything about the guy personally, right?

It was this kind of like class based thing with this guy kind of as an avatar for the health care system, which has been kind of a source of a lot of the sort of populist --

BASH: Yes.

EGGER: -- energy that you guys are talking about. But again, yes, it was -- he mentioned that, but then just became very unequivocal. You know, it was a horrible act.

BASH: All right. Well, thank you for this rock and roll show. Really appreciate it.

Before we go, we want to let you know we are following breaking news out of Madison, Wisconsin. Police say officers are responding to a shooting at Abundant Life Christian School. Police say multiple injuries have been reported. This is an active and ongoing investigation.

CNN News Central will be back with more details after a quick break.

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