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Trump Threatens To Seize Control Of Panama Canal; Outgoing Sen. Joe Manchin Torches Dems In Exit Interview; Texas Rep. Kay Granger Experiencing "Dementia Issues," Living In Retirement Home, Hasn't Voted Since July. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired December 23, 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]

PHIL MATTINGLY, CNN ANCHOR: Yes.

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: Right? Because you bring in the Canadian population, tough Republicans, yes.

MATTINGLY: -- how does the House break down in terms of the census going forward and allocation. We joke around. My assumption is somebody raised the fees that they were paying while going through. That seems to be the most logical, I guess.

NICHOLS: It gives you a sense that Trump is potentially worried about the impact of tariffs on inflation because that's going to raise shipping costs. So that's one line of inquiry. You know, whenever these questions, when it came up in the first term of buying Greenland, territory expansion is a firm part of American history in the last two centuries, right?

I mean, like, it was a big deal in the 19th century. It happened before. We just haven't had that be part of our conversation, which is why it seems so interesting. My theory on how Trump came up with this, he was reading a little biography, was dusting off his history, and he came across that James Monroe is clearly reviving the Monroe Doctrine.

If it's in our hemisphere, we can control it. And this is make the hemisphere great again.

OLIVIA BEAVERS, CONGRESSIONAL REPORTER, POLITICO: And keep in mind with Donald Trump, he likes to throw things out there and just see what the response is.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes.

BEAVERS: And he did that with Greenland, and maybe he's revived it now that he's coming back into the White House. But sometimes, I think, you know, as reporters, even members of Congress, they're trying to figure out where he's serious, and sometimes that also seems to be where things get traction.

He'll do this at his rallies, he'll throw an idea out there, see how the crowd responds, and maybe move on and change, and that's something that the crowd loves about him is he's sort of vibe checking them and it's sort of a feedback system. But it does seem like this just falls in line with Trump talking about tariffs and trade because he was opining about the ridiculous fees at the canal.

MATTINGLY: But Dave, you know, the Canada seemed to be like he was just kind of jabbing at Justin Trudeau and his government and seemed to be having a pretty good time with it when it came out afterwards. The Greenland piece of this, though, which was, I think we've determined -- reporting it out back in his first term was like a very real fixation.

DAVID WEIGEL, POLITICS REPORTER, SEMAFOR: Oh yes.

NICHOLS: Yes, yes.

MATTINGLY: That he just randomly -- random is not the right word, he just dropped it into the, hey, I'm nominating this guy to be my ambassador to Denmark, and part of the reason why I'm nominating him is because still pretty into the whole Greenland thing.

WEIGEL: Yes, and this -- it wasn't just his whim. And Tom Cotton was into this idea.

MATTINGLY: Right.

WEIGEL: There are National Defense Conservatives, you can call them, who say, wouldn't it be great for the next century to own --

MATTINGLY: Why? What's the rationale?

WEIGEL: -- that continent? Natural resources, location --

NICHOLS: Climate change is real.

WEIGEL: Climate -- well, don't say that part so loud, but that is among them. And also the impact that -- whenever he says these, you mentioned Canada, this -- Justin Trudeau's government was already very weak, he was locked to -- liberals are going to lose whenever the next election is.

But the discourse in Canada became what Donald Trump was saying. The leader of the conservatives in Canada had to respond to Donald Trump. He is very aware of that, as not even president yet. That he can drive international news cycles, that drives the coverage in those countries, that drives the questions that go to finance ministers and negotiators.

Do that again in Europe before they head there and they start negotiating over NATO payments. Makes a lot of sense, even if you don't get Greenland, to start stirring that up because you can.

JASMINE WRIGHT, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: And I think for Trump, isn't the unpredictability the point, right?

WEIGEL: Yes. WRIGHT: Isn't the instability the point? If people don't know, if foreign officials don't know where he's going to move, it makes him -- it makes it easier to be more limber, to be more evasive, to maybe get more gains for the American people.

I mean, I've talked to a number of foreign officials in the last month who are concerned because they don't know what he says, if he really means it, if he doesn't mean it, if it's a tactic to get more on the back end. And I think that that instability is the reason why Trump believes that he thrives in these situations.

And it's why the American public who supports him believe he thrives in this situation because if you can't control him, that means that you don't know what he's going to be able to do. And he has been able to tell enough people that that instability leads to gains. And I think that this is a part of the whole conversations right now.

MATTINGLY: Yes, it's part of a process that he believes delivers an outcome, and believes he has reasons to do that. What's also fascinating is he now has -- he's always had amplification for these types of moments, but now he's got Elon Musk as well, who is amplifying the Panama Canal issue.

Which Democrats have tried to kind of flip on its head a little bit, say, Musk is the president. He's the --

WRIGHT: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- real one operating here, which Trump responded to it down in Arizona last night. Listen.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: No, he's not taking the presidency. I like having smart people. You know, the -- they're on a new kick, Russia, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine, all the different hoaxes. And the new one is President Trump has ceded the presidency to Elon Musk.

No, no, that's not happening. But no, he's not going to be president, that I can tell you. And I'm safe, you know why? He can't be. He wasn't born in this country.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

MATTINGLY: That was like a very specific, accurate reason that he decided to throw in.

BEAVERS: He's thought about it, he's thought about it.

MATTINGLY: But we've seen Democrats really try and latch on to this. Do you think it's effective?

BEAVERS: I think clearly, if he's already responding to it, it's a sign that maybe it got under his skin. He's making that into a joke, but Democrats were hitting this left and right before they left for the holidays. And I think that this is something that they're going to try to keep following as they figure out what their messaging is against Trump heading into the next year, including, you know, arguments that he's chaotic, which you saw during the government spending fight.

[12:35:10]

And I think Democrats are still trying to figure out what their message is after the election. They felt like going after Trump maybe wasn't as effective as they wanted it and they needed to go into more kitchen table sort of issues. But Elon Musk and Democrats and Donald Trump and Elon Musk are definitely two storylines that we want to keep following into the next year.

MATTINGLY: Are we simplistic in how we -- I feel like the biggest question in Washington is how long can this Musk-Trump thing last? And I'm not of the mind that it's going to break apart anytime soon.

NICHOLS: Yes, they seem -- it seems to be symbiotic, right?

MATTINGLY: Right.

NICHOLS: They're both getting something out of it. And both of them are living rent free in a lot of Democrats and leftist center and liberals' heads, right? Even though there's all this talk about going to blue sky, it seems like the tell-tale town is pretty obsessed about what's taking place on Twitter still.

Whoever framed that sort of connection for Trump, who framed it up for Trump saying that the Elon is usurping you, right? This is some Shakespearean tragedy and he's the real usurper here to the throne. Whoever framed it like that to him and connected it with the Russia collusion, they deserve a pay raise because that's the way --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

NICHOLS: -- to get into -- so just convince Donald Trump that this is an extension of the Russia collusion hoax. And, you know, I know Trump came up with himself, but that's how he thinks about it. And that's, to me, is an indication that Trump's not much fussed about it and he can endure this relationship for as long as he sees it to be advantageous.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Real quick, last word?

WEIGEL: Oh, no, completely. And as you were saying, you know, Democrats want the country to think Elon Musk is secretly running things, but look at the polling. I think Quinnipiac had this, 41 percent of people like Elon's must roll in the government. That's not a majority, that's less than support for Trump.

What's the support for Congress? It's 20 percent. So they -- I -- the Republicans I talked to at the end of the week were pretty confident that if you convince the country that the richest man in the world is making these cost cutting decisions, that's not right now a loser. Let's check back in six months. MATTINGLY: Yes, and I think we will, probably every day and every week of the next six months or so.

WRIGHT: I just think that that comment just created doomsday clock, right? I mean, it's overdramatic, but it's starting and we'll just see how long it lasts.

MATTINGLY: I mean, we needed things to do. Last week showed, next week's not going to be busy or --

NICHOLS: Is it the friendship clock? Is that what you're saying?

WRIGHT: Yes, the friendship clock, but it's pointed down.

WEIGEL: Tom Massie (ph) can design one.

MATTINGLY: Yes. Perfect, perfect.

All right, coming up next, Senator Joe Manchin leaving Washington after 15 years with a warning to his former -- soon to be former colleagues.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

MANU RAJU, CNN CHIEF CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Do you still consider yourself a Democrat?

SEN. JOE MANCHIN (I), WEST VIRGINIA: I am not a Democrat in the form of what the Democratic Party has turned itself into. The national brand, absolutely not.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

MATTINGLY: You may have seen Manu Raju, his exit interview with the senator who seemed to frustrate just about everyone and was proud of it. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:41:58]

MATTINGLY: Perhaps no single lawmaker has been more pivotal, more in the spotlight or face more blowback from the left over the last four years than Senator Joe Manchin. So much so, that earlier this year he dropped his Democratic Party affiliation and became an independent.

Now, after 15 years in the Senate, he's hanging it up. CNN's Manu Raju has spent many of those years, probably all of them, chasing Manchin through the halls of Congress. But last week, they met on neutral ground. The Dubliner, a Capitol Hill watering hole about halfway between CNN's Washington Bureau and the Capitol.

(BEGIN VIDEOCLIP)

RAJU: Do you still consider yourself a Democrat? MANCHIN: I am not a Democrat in the form of what the Democratic Party has turned itself into. The national brand, absolutely not. And they know that. They're all good people on both sides.

RAJU: But what do you think is the reason for, you said, you're not a Democrat. What caused Joe Manchin to divorce himself --

MANCHIN: Here's what I told them. I said, you ought to figure out how you lost somebody like me. I was born as a Democrat because of my grandfather's love of FDR. I was a very strong Democrat because of my family's love of John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

I came through the whole iteration, and I was a Democrat in West Virginia, and it has always been a 75 percent, 80 percent plurality of Democrats, registered Democrats. But there was a split. I was never in the liberal side of it. I was never in the establishment side. So I always had to fight my way through it.

RAJU: But was it -- what is the -- is it a shift on social issues?

MANCHIN: Yes, the brand got so bad. The D brand has been so maligned from the standpoint of, it's just -- it's toxic. And the D brand is basically this, you know? I've told them, I said, first of all, as an American, and as someone in the Senate, and I'm going to take the Constitutional oath, the Constitution that I take very, very seriously.

I'm going to help every human being pursue the happiness in their life, pursuit of happiness. I don't care who they are, I don't care what color, I don't care any of the things, who they love and what. Do it and that's you. I'm going to make sure you have the opportunity and right to live your life.

Just don't make your life, if it might be on the extremes or in the minority of the few, make me believe that's the norm, or make me and my family believe, or my children believe, or this or that. No. I will protect you. Just don't try to mainstream it. And the Democratic Party, the Washington Democrats, have tried to mainstream the extreme.

RAJU: How would you describe what the Democratic brand is right now? In a couple of words, what is the Democratic brand?

MANCHIN: You know, it's basically infringement on me making decisions. And let me tell you why. The Democrat I grew up being, they wanted to make sure the people had an opportunity for a good job. A good pay, they would make sure you got a decent pay where you have some benefits and you can enjoy your family and make sure you had a safe working in this. That was one of those things. OK.

[12:45:08]

That's all. They never got -- never infringed over and, oh, you got -- you can't live your life that way. You can't say this, you can't do this. There was a fairness in it.

RAJU: Do you think -- so you think it's changed? It's become (INAUDIBLE).

MANCHIN: It has changed tremendously. They have basically expanded upon thinking, well, we wanted to protect you there, but we're going to tell you how you should live your life from that far on. It's the mindset of the left, the progressive left, which was always a minority.

In West Virginia, the Democratic Party has proceeded. For more attention and more resources to people that are capable and able bodied that won't work or don't work than those that do.

RAJU: So, OK. This is from the incoming chair of the House Progressive Caucus. He says, if the Democratic Party was a little more like Chairwoman Jayapal and a little less than Joe, like Joe Manchin, I think we would have won this election. Is he right?

MANCHIN: They'd have lost -- they got to be nuts. For someone to say that, they've got to be completely insane.

RAJU: Why?

MANCHIN: They went -- the people in America voted. They had that opportunity, you know, to vote with Kamala Harris and with Donald Trump. Donald Trump, there's not much hasn't been said, you know, exactly what you're getting. He hasn't made any bones about it.

As you might say, that's too far right, OK? If that's the case, then why did they go too far right when Kamala was trying to come back to the middle a little bit, OK? And they're saying if Kamala would have been who she always has been, pretty far to the left, it had been better for her. That's crazy.

(END VIDEOCLIP)

MATTINGLY: Well, thanks to Manu for that.

Now, a member of Congress living in a senior living facility after not voting on the House floor for months. It's the actual story of retiring Congresswoman Kay Granger. That's next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:51:28]

MATTINGLY: Retiring Republican Texas Congresswoman Kay Granger hasn't voted on the House floor since July. Well, new reporting over the weekend from the Dallas Express found that she has been living in a senior living facility in Texas. Her son told the Dallas Morning News that the Congresswoman has been, quote, "having some dementia issues".

Now Granger, who is 81, is the chair of the powerful Appropriations Committee up until March of this year.

My panel is back with me now and I want to read some of the Congresswoman's statement where she says in part, "I've been navigating some unforeseen health challenges over the past year. However, since early September, my health challenges have progressed making frequent travel to Washington both difficult and unpredictable. During this time, my staff has remained steadfast, continuing to deliver exceptional constituent services".

We've seen this over the course of the last, I've been here for 15, 16 years, where you have a member or two, kind of almost every single Congress that is in this spot. This one seems particularly bad though when you realize where she's been the last six months.

BEAVERS: Yes, I mean, gone are the days where a senator or member can sort of wither away and die in office with, you know, with health questions and performance questions arising. Kay Granger was a top Republican on the Appropriations Committee, and in March, she resigned from leading that committee after they funded the government.

I think even before she resigned, there were questions about her health. And people sort of, it was a low sort of whispers of, is she up for it, she stepped back, and then she sort of disappeared in the following months after that, and she wasn't showing up to votes. And I think that this is just one of those iterations about concerns of whether there's transparency with the people.

Is she able to represent the people of her district? And I think one of those reports had talked about how her local office had shuttered around --

MATTINGLY: Yes.

BEAVERS: -- Thanksgiving and some of the constituents were calling, we're just getting voicemails. So I think this is a broader dialogue that's happening on the tail end of President Biden concerns about his mental fitness. We also saw this with Dianne Feinstein in the Senate and a few other people.

MATTINGLY: And I think that's my question is coming off of the discussion that everyone was forced to have after a debate --

NICHOLS: Yes.

MATTINGLY: -- which totally changed the shape of the presidential race. Are we in a different moment now?

NICHOLS: We're still, as reporters, have limited resources and limited time to report all these stories out. That said, we should have gotten the Kay Granger story. I mean, like, I'll own part of that as someone that spends some time on the Hill.

You know, collectively, if we're all guilty, like, you know, individually, it's hard to parse out guilt. Should there be stronger local news in Texas? Yes. Right? Would they have sniffed it out?

But there's no mechanism in our Constitution to really sort of catch this or prevent it from happening. It's on the press corps. And we, you know, we just have to figure out how to figure it out. And it takes real reporting, right? This is real resources. You have to call up people in the offices. You have to talk to their lawmakers. You have to talk to her colleagues. You have to get the story. Not impossible to do. It's pretty obvious in retrospect, but none of us had the time or the resources to do it. And, you know --

WEIGEL: Yes.

NICHOLS: -- we owe a portion of the blame.

WEIGEL: Yes, it's an appeal to decorum and that decorum is doing nobody in Washington any favors, especially -- this is not a Democratic story, but especially Democrats. This is Democrats ideally want people to trust the elected representative of the people, trust the people that you send to Congress, not a billionaire running things behind the scenes.

Well, one thing you can't have in the private sector is a CEO who can't show up for any meetings or do any work and secretly has a staff running things. You can't do that. You can in Congress. This has been endemic, and Democrats have started to deal a little bit with this, with getting rid of some of the ranking members in --

WRIGHT (?): Sure.

WEIGEL: -- a fairly painful process, but after really good reporting from Politico and others about how there are Members of Congress, David Scott and the Ag Committee, who were unable to do the job. The niceness with which we -- with reporters are handling these elderly members of Congress and the way the stats are handling them is really hurting the credibility of the institution.

[12:55:08]

WRIGHT: Yes, I mean, if there's a question about why Americans are no longer trusting these incredibly important institutions that we have in this country, this is a reason. It's not the full reason, but this is a reason and it's incumbent upon staff.

Yes, reporters should have been better about the story and some other ones, including Joe Biden, but it is also incumbent upon staff to be truthful about what their members are doing. And so I think that this applies to folks on the Hill, this applies to people in the White House, this applies to these other institutions that are very important for American life.

And so I think that we cannot really respond to the American voter who feels that they don't trust us and trust us in these spaces if we continuously have situations like this that feel that it's kind of a slap in the face for people.

MATTINGLY: Yes --

NICHOLS: It's a huge vote against proxy voting, right? The whole idea that --

WRIGHT: Yes. NICHOLS: -- during COVID you had proxy voting, and I, you know, I know that Democrats liked it because of the COVID prescriptions and Republicans did away with it, but these stories are easier to sort of obscure and hide if everyone's in their districts voting by proxy. Harder to do when everyone comes to Washington and can lay eyes on people.

MATTINGLY: Yes, no question about it. Reporters certainly, staff, colleagues, they know.

WRIGHT: They know.

MATTINGLY: Trust me, they know.

WRIGHT: They know.

MATTINGLY: Thank you all for joining INSIDE POLITICS. CNN NEWS CENTRAL starts right after the break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)