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New GOP Plan Drops Trump's Demand To Raise Debt Ceiling; Musk Endorses Far-Right Party In Germany; Biden Forfeits Bully Pulpit To Trump One Month Before Inauguration; Elon Musk Social Media Posts Throw U.S. Govt. Into Chaos. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 20, 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]

SEN. CHRIS MURPHY (D), CONNECTICUT: -- Trump decided that they wanted to get some help passing their billionaire tax cut and so they threatened to shut down the government unless we raise the debt ceiling, the amount of money that the government can borrow, so that it would be easier for them to pass a billionaire corporate tax cut next year.

That was their position yesterday. If it remains their position today, they will not be able to pass this bill through the House of Representatives. So we're all waiting to hear.

DANA BASH, CNN ANCHOR: And just to go a little bit into the weeds for our viewers so that they understand some of the process that led you to make the argument that you did, they -- and Donald Trump wanted to raise the debt limit, which would kind of set the ball rolling for lots of things, including and especially that tax package that Donald Trump and Elon Musk and Ramaswamy, all Republicans, frankly, want to get through.

You actually earlier this week said that you want to do away with the debt ceiling. You introduced legislation to that effect. So what's wrong with doing that?

MURPHY: Well, the problem here is that they're asking only to get rid of the debt ceiling for a short period of time to allow them to do a massive new tax cut for billionaires and millionaires. We can have a conversation about whether it makes sense to continue to require Congress to raise the debt.

But they're asking for a limited increase in order to do one thing. And that one thing is not invest in our schools or upgrade our nation's infrastructure. It's to pass along a brand new tax cut to billionaires and corporations. That's a terrible idea for the country and a terrible idea for Congress.

BASH: And I believe ultimately Donald Trump has said that he wants to eliminate the debt ceiling. You would work with him on that?

MURPHY: I'm certainly willing to have a conversation about that. But that's not what was on the table yesterday.

BASH: Understood.

MURPHY: What was on the table yesterday was a very targeted lifting of the debt ceiling for the explicit purpose of allowing them to pass their billionaire tax cut.

BASH: Let's just sit for a second on what you said about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, but Elon Musk in particular. And that is, you believe that they're in charge of the government right now. You are not the only person to say this. You went on his platform, X, and you made that clear in a number of posts.

And I'm just wondering about that dynamic, and not asking you to be an analyst, I really want to know from your point of view as a senator, how that impacts the actual president-elect.

MURPHY: Well, listen, my impression is that Speaker Johnson was in communication with Donald Trump or Donald Trump's representatives as he was negotiating the continuing resolution that eventually was submarined by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy.

And what happened is pretty simple. Trump seemed to be on board with the bill, but then when Musk opposed it, Trump followed suit. So that to me is a pretty clear story. The people you have to negotiate with if you are Republican leadership in the House or the Senate is not the incoming president of the United States, it's his billionaire overlords that were not elected and are frankly working with Trump because they want to protect their own interests.

Why did Elon Musk not oppose the defense bill, which has loaded with lots and lots of spending, but oppose the continuing resolution? Maybe because his bread is buttered in the defense bill. That's where there are programs that help his businesses and pad his profits.

So you have billionaires right now that seem to be in charge of Trump's policy and Trump's positions that are conflicted.

BASH: Well, Senator --

MURPHY: -- and that's a big deal for the whole country and for policymakers.

BASH: Well, Senator, on that note, on his platform X last night, Elon Musk endorsed the far-right German political party Alternative for Germany, AfD for short, saying, quote, "Only the AfD can save Germany".

Now, this is a group that has been labeled as extremist by Germany's own government. One of its founders has been charged in the past with promoting Nazi slogans. I saw that you noticed this on X. Can you talk about your reaction to this?

MURPHY: Yes, I mean, this is not normal. So AfD is essentially the neo-Nazi party in Germany. They exist to try to rehabilitate the image of the Nazi party. And they have all sorts of very dangerous ideas about ridding Germany of anyone who is not naturally born in that country. They are an extremist group, and it is just extraordinary that maybe the most important adviser to the president of the United States, somebody that has been, you know, parading around the halls of Congress as a key adviser to the president, is endorsing a neo-Nazi party --

BASH: What does it tell you?

MURPHY: -- inside Germany.

[12:35:18]

I mean, I don't know what it tells me. What we know is that what Elon Musk thinks tends to eventually be what the president of the United States thinks. And if the United States takes an official position in favor of neo-Nazis in Germany, I mean, it is absolutely catastrophic, absolutely catastrophic, for the people of Germany, for Europe, and ultimately for the United States.

So, listen, we saw that tweet overnight last night, and I think we should be talking more about what it means for Trump's foreign policy if he's going to be doing business with neo-Nazis abroad.

BASH: Senator Chris Murphy, thank you so much. Hope that you and everybody up there, particularly those who work for all of our elected officials, get to enjoy a little bit of a break and a holiday.

MURPHY: Thanks, Dana.

BASH: Thanks for being here.

Coming up, with a month left in his term, President Biden has ceded the spotlight to his successor. So how is he spending his final days in office? We'll discuss after a break.

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[12:40:54]

BASH: As Washington barrels toward a shutdown, one figure is conspicuously missing -- the President. President Biden has been essentially absent from the funding fight, in some ways publicly ending his presidency a full month before his successor is sworn in.

When Biden leaves the White House in just 31 days, it will be on a very different note than he hit three years and 11 months ago.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Today, on this January day, my whole soul is in this, bringing America together, uniting our people, uniting our nation. I give you my word. I will always level with you.

I will defend the Constitution. I'll defend our democracy. I'll defend America. And I'll give all, all of you, keep everything I do in your service.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

BASH: My panel is back. And, Zolan, you and Peter Baker have a piece this week in The Times about Joe Biden and what's going on there. And I'll just read a quote from it. "Mr. Biden has absented himself from the debate convulsing the country. After warning again and again that Mr. Trump posed an existential threat to American democracy, he has now gone silent on the matter.

At times, Mr. Biden bristles at the constraints. Before the election, when he had been regulated to the sidelines of the campaign, the President told an ally that he was bored and asked if there were any events for him to attend, a comment that seemed only particularly facetious."

ZOLAN KANNO-YOUNGS, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: This is the point, particularly that first point, is what Democrats and allies of this White House behind closed doors are expressing concern and frustration of. And that being that after years of warning that the president- elect, that Trump was a threat to democracy, that now it appears that you have a president that is almost leaving the stage before the final curtain call.

The fact that we haven't heard much from him, even though the president-elect that's coming into office has threatened to prosecute his political opponents, has, you know, signaled many of the things that Biden warned about during the campaign. We still haven't heard from him address, really, a constituency base and voters that believed him and did vote for him in large numbers.

I traveled with him through Latin America, kind of the finale of his finale on the global stage, through Latin America as well to Angola. He answered only two shouted questions that combined 14 words to reporters, including about Trump.

The other point that we found is also just his condition and his fitness. We have to remind people that for years, the President and his allies said, I am the best person to defeat Donald Trump. And that resulted in a tight campaign schedule as well for Vice President Harris.

The President did seem exhausted on these trips. And, yes, anyone would, but we're talking about someone who said that he had the ability to serve for another four years. And what we found was somebody that just appeared exhausted at the table with fellow global leaders, at one point putting his head into his hand, closing his eyes briefly.

Somebody that I was told as well, you know, just at one point at a slave museum in Angola, you know, they basically did planning where he would give a speech and leave because he didn't have the ability to get up a steep flight of stairs as well.

And then we also sought to just get into his mindset as well. This is a president that is moody as well, was frustrated for being sidelined during the campaign, you know, and also is frustrated at some fellow Democrats that have continued to heighten criticism against him for his decision to stay in the race and also for the decision to pardon his son as well.

BASH: Let's hear a little bit from him. He did do an interview with a liberal outlet. Here's what he said.

BIDEN: I'm convinced that over time, the American public will respond to what is the intention of the party to try to help ordinary people. I know people look at my government and say, my government's fair. My government's being fair. They're being decent. They're working in a way that benefits everybody. And --

(END VIDEOCLIP)

[12:45:21]

JEFF ZELENY, CNN CHIEF NATIONAL AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Look, he's hoping that his legacy is viewed in a similar way to a couple of previous presidents. I mean, George W. Bush was viewed much better in the rearview mirror. Barack Obama, the Health Care Act, of course, which Joe Biden once famously called a big f-ing deal, was viewed more favorably now.

But we will see. I mean, what -- the biggest question here is the reason that Joe Biden came back from private life or -- from private life into public life was to stop Donald Trump. And he's taking his leave with Donald Trump coming back to the White House. So I'm not sure how history will view the Biden presidency, but I think that is what he's hoping for, that it'll look better in the long run.

BASH: All right, guys, we're going to have to leave it there. I'm sorry. Thank you so much, all of you, for your terrific reporting for the whole hour.

Coming up, "You are the media now". That is a quote from Elon Musk, who told his 200 million followers on X. He said that even as he and plenty of people there are spreading pretty dangerous disinformation. We'll explain after a break.

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[12:50:46]

BASH: One social media post, it's all it takes to throw the United States government into a state of chaos, at least when that post comes from the world's richest man who is seemingly President-elect Donald Trump's closest adviser. That's what happened earlier this week, of course, when Elon Musk took to the social media platform that he owns to torpedo the Republican backed spending bill.

And this is just the latest in a very series of glaring examples of how information is spread. Axios put it this way this morning, quote, "This reality highlights the difference between media, what people consume and reporting a set of standards for pursuing fact-based information. In the new world order, media and reporting are tossed together with a mix of truth, opinion and nonsense".

Joining me now to explore this is CNN Chief Media Analyst Brian Stelter. Thank you so much for being here, Brian. I'm guessing that you --

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Thanks.

BASH: -- concur with what Mike Allen said this morning.

STELTER: Well, I think we are all members of the media. So when Elon Musk says, hey, you're the media now, he's not saying something new or novel, he's saying something that's self-evidently true. We all have social media accounts. We all have phones. We're all members of the media.

The concept of citizen journalism has been around for years. But I think what Axios is pointing out that's really important is the distinction between reporting and talking, right? Someone like Elon Musk is doing a lot of talking. And in the case of Musk, in particular, he seems to believe whatever scrolls past him on his phone.

That's why he sometimes shares misinformation, including about the spending bill situation. So there's a lot of talking out there, a lot of noise, sometimes nonsense, a lot less reporting. I think it was valuable for Axios to make that distinction.

You know, if you ask me what's been the biggest change in our society during our careers, it's been the flattening of information. Everything looks the same now, a well-researched paper by a professor versus some random person's point of view. And in some ways, that's a beautiful thing.

And people like Elon Musk have benefited from it. All of us have benefited from the flattening of information. But it's also caused a lot of information pollution and confusion. And people like Musk also benefit from that.

BASH: You mentioned that he wrote, we are or you are all the media now. And I want to put up on the screen what Axios did. And it's going to look like sort of maybe double vision because he put up --

STELTER: Inception, yes.

BASH: -- of you and our colleague Jim Acosta. I want to then move to a couple of examples, Brian, of what you just said. Some examples of what Musk was posting this week as he tanked that --

STELTER: Yes.

BASH: -- bipartisan spending bill. First, he questioned how the bill can be called a continuing resolution if it includes a, he said, a 40, 4-0 percent increase in pay for Congress. That is not what the bill did. The pay raise, it did have a pay raise, but it would have been less than 4 percent, not 40, under 4 percent. He also posted that an NFL stadium here in Washington should not be funded by your taxpayers. It wasn't funded by the taxpayers in that bill. It was specifically something about the way the land was dedicated.

And so those are just two examples of things that probably are not going to be in what eventually passes. And it's probably not going to be in what eventually passes. And it's likely because of those two posts, which don't have correct information, Brian.

STELTER: He's oftentimes relying on random anonymous accounts, these websites, you know, these users on X who are trying to present themselves as the new CNN, the new New York Times, but have no research behind them, no backing, no institutional knowledge.

And I understand that for Musk, that's really appealing. It's exciting on his platform. But he ends up misleading a lot of people. You know, it is striking how he does seem to be learning about lawmaking in real time. And just a moment ago, he tweeted about all the coverage of him in the last 24 hours.

You know, there's been all these questions, Dana. Is he the real president-elect? Is he the shadow president?

[12:55:09]

Well, Musk responded on X. He says, the political and legacy media puppets are all echoing the same idea, parroting the same message, trying to drive a wedge between Trump and me. And Musk adds, they will fail.

I don't think anybody's trying to drive a wedge except those Democrats who are saying it. Journalists are just trying to understand the relationship between Trump and Musk, because it's one of the most important relationships of the next four years.

BASH: We're literally calling it as we see it. Elon Musk put out on social media that he didn't like the bill. Then there was a statement from Donald Trump and J.D. Vance, and then everything fell apart.

Brian, thanks for coming on. Appreciate it. Have a good holiday.

STELTER: Good to see you. Thanks. You too.

BASH: Join me on State of the Union this Sunday. I'll have exclusive interviews with Republican Senator Bill Hagerty and Democratic Senator Chris Coons. I hope to see you Sunday at 9:00 a.m. Eastern, right here on CNN.

Thank you for joining Inside Politics. CNN New Central starts after the break.

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