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Trump Delays TikTok Ban as He Looks for Options to Save It; Blue-collar Trump Voters Want Quick Proof Promises Will Be Kept; Trump Shares Letter From Biden Left in Resolute Desk With Fox News. Aired 12:30-1p ET

Aired January 22, 2025 - 12:30   ET

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


(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:30:40]

DANA BASH, CNN CHIEF POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT AND ANCHOR OF 'INSIDE POLITICS': President Trump is promising to save TikTok and he's floating new ideas on how to do it.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Are you open to Elon buying TikTok?

DONALD TRUMP, (R) PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: I would be if he wanted to buy it, yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: And on your inauguration -- on your inauguration.--

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: I'd like Larry to buy it too. What I'm thinking about saying to somebody is buy it and give half to the United States of America, half, and we'll give you the permit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: That Larry he was talking about is Larry Ellison. YouTube and TikTok star, Mr. Beast is also officially bidding for TikTok. Even though Trump is floating potential buyers, the app's future could hinge on whether its Chinese owner, ByteDance, agrees to sell it.

Joining me now is Chief Media Analyst, Brian Stelter. OK, so time is up for Donald Trump to figure out a deal very, very soon. Walk us through where these potential ideas stand now.

BRIAN STELTER, CNN CHIEF MEDIA ANALYST: Yeah. Trump is rhetorically repositioning the current U.S. law banning TikTok as a big business opportunity. The language he uses here is really interesting, Dana. He's referring to the existing ban that Congress wanted to have implemented as a permit. He's saying that I will issue a permit to allow TikTok to stay in the U.S. if there's a buyer and a deal, or I'll keep away the permit. I'll revoke the permit. So, he has totally changed his language about how he's describing this TikTok situation. He's not talking about national security concerns at all. He's talking about this as a business opportunity, as a deal making opportunity. And I think we should view this in the larger context of the U.S.-China relationship, especially as it comes to Trump's threats to impose new tariffs.

I spoke with Wedbush Securities Analyst, Dan Ives, this morning. He said, "TikTok is one poker chip in the broader game of high-stakes poker between China and the U.S. And it may well be in China's interest to allow Trump to do a deal with TikTok here because of those broader implications for tariffs and other matters."

BASH: Well, when he talks about giving the United States half of TikTok and Elon Musk half, half, or somebody else in the private sector -- or private sector --

STELTER: Yeah.

BASH: -- with regard to Elon Musk, what does that even mean? Who controls it?

STELTER: Right. He is referring to creating a joint venture and having TikTok bring in an outside American partner like Elon Musk. It is striking that he said he would be on board for a Musk deal. Earlier today in Davos, one of the ByteDance board of directors said he believes a deal will get done because, "It's in everybody's interest." So that's a signal from ByteDance that maybe they are open to some sort of arrangement here.

Look, we know that TikTok was trying to give Trump an early PR win by thanking him for keeping the app or bringing the app back online over the weekend. So, there are some signs here that China is willing to figure out a way to keep TikTok online despite the U.S. ban, because as Dan Ives said, maybe it's just one poker chip in this broader game being played.

BASH: And the fact that the national security implications, they're not even being discussed. Now, in fairness, if it is purchased, whether it's 50/50 the government and Elon Musk or someone else, ideally that would be that the Chinese government ByteDance/the Chinese government would not have the access to data in the United States that it has now.

Brian, thank you so much. Appreciate your coming on.

STELTER: Thanks.

BASH: And explaining all of this. Coming up, John King at sea.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

(LAUGH)

ANDREW KONCHEK, NEW HAMPSHIRE VOTER: It's got to make good news if he gets bit. (END VIDEO CLIP)

BASH: His report sails into unchartered political waters, after a break.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:38:55]

BASH: President Trump is taking a dizzying amount of action since he was inaugurated a little more than 48 hours ago now. John King traveled to New England last week, ahead of the inauguration, to talk with Trump voters about the promises that they are hoping the new president keeps.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN KING, CNN ANCHOR AND CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): Daybreak on the Atlantic. It's playtime for a pod of dolphins and another subfreezing day at the office for Andrew Konchek. These trips can last up to 12 days. Joe Biden was president when we left Provincetown Harbor. Donald Trump will be back in the White House the next time Konchek and his colleagues head out.

KONCHEK: Saw you'd stand here like this, see.

KING (voice-over): Konchek is just as he was when we first met 16 months ago and promised him we'd spend a day out here. He wishes Trump would bite his tongue sometimes, wishes he would let women settle the abortion debate, wishes he would acknowledge the climate crisis that makes this grueling work even more unpredictable.

But Trump got his vote in the New Hampshire primary and again in November because he promises to close the border.

[12:40:00]

Most of all though, because Trump opposes offshore wind farms, Konchek believes will destroy New England fisheries, destroy his way of life.

KONCHEK: The hundreds of miles that they're going to put in the ocean here in the Gulf of Maine, we wouldn't be able to fish it. So I would be out of a job.

KING (voice-over): Trump's blue collar appeal extends to the Massachusetts mainland, one of the bluest places on the presidential map. This is Boston where Vice President Harris won 77 percent of the vote, but Trump share jumped from 15 percent in 2020 to 20 percent this time, and he won two precincts in the city's Dorchester neighborhood. That's my home, one at this firefighter's union hall, the other at this public library.

DON LOPEZ, MASSACHUSETTS VOTER: This neighborhood is pretty blue, pretty Democrat. Well, Massachusetts, you are in Massachusetts. It's a Democratic state.

KING: And yet, this precinct voted for Donald Trump.

LOPEZ: This did?

KING: Yes.

LOPEZ: I didn't know that.

KING (voice-over): Don Lopez inherited this Dorchester flower shop from his father.

LOPEZ: This is where we make everything.

KING (voice-over): And he is now handing it off to his sons. A little nervous talking politics because it could hurt business.

KING: Take me inside your decision in the last election.

LOPEZ: I'd rather not.

(LAUGH)

KING: Why not?

LOPEZ: I'm here as a small businessman, trying to be -- make everybody happy with flowers.

(LAUGH)

KING: But talk policy and it's an easy code to crack.

LOPEZ: We have the border, they're spending money in Washington like this, going out -- going out of style. The country has -- needs to go in another direction. So I feel that's why people are voting Republican because they're a little fed up.

KING (voice-over): The Erie Pub is a Dorchester landmark. Cops, firefighters, plumbers and electricians fill these stools. John Stenson's dad bought the place 60 years ago.

JOHN STENSON, MASSACHUSETTS VOTER: They are, first of all, Irish, many of them. Secondly, basically blue collar workers, union officials, union workers, your everyday people that make up a neighborhood.

KING: What was the vote split here among your regulars?

STENSON: Among my regulars, they probably were in favor of Trump. They're probably 60/40.

KING: 60/40?

STENSON: Yeah.

KING: When Trump won two precincts in Boston and they were right here. That surprise you?

STENSON: No, because I'm here every day and I hear the conversation.

KING: What were people talking about?

STENSON: Oh, well, immigration and cost of living at the top, absolutely the top.

KING (voice-over): John was behind the bar when Ronald Reagan stopped by four decades ago to tip a pint in a place where many Kennedy Democrats became Reagan Democrats. Bill Clinton stopped by a decade later to say he was a different kind of Democrat, not as liberal.

STENSON: Most Democrats are working-class people and if they feel like there's a man there that kind of represents them, they can vote for him. Whether it's there's an R or a D next to his name, and I think they saw that with Reagan and I think they saw it again with Trump.

KING (voice-over): Now the test is keeping promises.

STENSON: Between what they're paying at the grocery store and how they feel about what he has done with the border in six months, I think that will give you your opinion.

KING (voice-over): Andrew Konchek agrees it is prove-it time. His wishlist begins with those wind farms and the border.

KONCHEK: He doesn't think before he talks sometimes.

KING: But you trust him.

KONCHEK: For the most part, yes.

KING: So what's the test?

KONCHEK: When he gets in office, then you get to see what he actually does and if he's going to do everything that he says that he's going to do.

KING (voice-over): Already though, his mood is better.

(LAUGH)

KONCHEK: It's got to make good news if he gets bit.

KING (voice-over): The fishing fleet keeps shrinking. The list of rules keeps growing. But Konchek sees Trump as his blue collar hope, his best shot to keep working the water.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

BASH: And John joins us now. I mean, it is really remarkable to be reminded how many people you voted -- you met with who voted for Trump were so focused on the economy. You've spoken to other voters that you met throughout the year.

KING (on camera): Yeah, including Andrew. I texted him this morning. He says, he is going back out to see. I asked him about these January 6th pardons and his first reaction, it was very important, tells you how much Trump has conditioned his people to be in the fight. He goes, why don't you cover the violence in New York or the looting in the stores? Right. Then when I went back and forth with him, he said, yeah, some of these pardons might get to me.

Other Trumpers, this is really interesting, this is -- this to me is the key. There are a lot of people, Linda Rooney, Media, Pennsylvania, voted for Trump in 2016. Biden in 2020, went back to Trump in 2024 because of cost of living issues. She didn't think Biden was an active president. He wasn't there. Here's what she said.

I was optimistically hopeful after the election, but I feel like he's a bull in the China shop or that he's using a sledgehammer where finer instruments are called for. Not all the January 6th people should be pardoned. It was an attack on our democracy and an attack on our elected leadership. That is a suburban Republican who will be key in the 2028 (ph).

BASH: Those were Nikki Haley -- was she actually?

KING (on camera): Yeah. She was a Nikki Haley voter.

[12:45:00]

They will be key, voters like Linda Rooney will be absolutely key in the next midterm election. Donald Trump is not on the ballot then, but a lot of Republicans are. Chris Mudd is from Cedar Falls, Iowa, again, one of our early voters. He is someone who is Trump, Trump, Trump. Voted for Trump all three times, said I like what I see so far.

DEI is good. I like the pardons for the J6ers. Here's -- this is also key though. I don't think I will like everything, but you have to take the good with the less good. A lot of Trump voters will tell you that because they have been conditioned, Dana, into that. This is a battle versus good and evil. This is a battle between wrong and right, and therefore, in their view, Trump is right and Trump will make mistakes, but they have to stick with Trump because he's right. That is the conditioning that Trump has in his base, right? We've talked about this and they will support him even when they cringe sometimes because they think they're part of a bigger fight.

BASH: I am your retribution.

KING: Yeah.

BASH: This is what he kept saying. So great, glad you didn't get bitten, or did you? You didn't.

KING: Lobsters are great.

(LAUGH)

BASH: All right. Coming up, from one president to another, we have Joe Biden's parting message to Donald Trump on his final day in office. (COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:50:25]

BASH: Just in, from Joe Biden to Donald Trump, Fox News just released the text of the handwritten letter the 46th president of the United States left in the Oval Office for the 47th. Here it is.

Dear President Trump, as I take leave of this sacred office, I wish you and your family all the best in the next four years. The American people and people around the world look to this house for steadiness in the inevitable storms of history. And my prayer is that the coming years will be a time of prosperity, peace, and grace for our nation. May God bless you and guide you as he has blessed and guided our beloved country since our founding.

David?

DAVID CHALIAN, CNN POLITICAL DIRECTOR: Well, we knew we were going to get the content of this letter soon because Monday night in the Oval Office, he held -- he found the envelope in the desk, held it up, and it was addressed to 47. And he said, I want to read it first, but I'll then maybe share it with you.

Listen, this is classic Joe Biden. This is -- this is Joe Biden who was writing this letter not for Donald Trump, but for history, and doing as he did with the inauguration festivities, a commitment to tradition and the institution. That is what this letter is all throughout. He's not working out grievances here. He's -- we all know how he feels about Donald Trump. He hasn't been shy about that. That's not present here.

And you'll recall that Biden, when he got his letter from Trump after defeating him four years ago, and Trump robbing him of all the smooth transition traditions, he still said that the letter Trump left him was "very generous."

BASH: Alayna?

ALAYNA TREENE, CNN WHITE HOUSE REPORTER: Yeah, I mean, Donald Trump described the letter as inspirational. Look, I totally agree with you, David. I think this letter is more about -- part of Biden's legacy, the last thing that he's leaving the White House with. Not necessarily surprising, but again, I mean, I don't have much more to add than David. I think that it's very clear what Joe Biden feels about Donald Trump, but I wasn't expecting that to be seen in this letter.

JASMINE WRIGHT, POLITICS REPORTER, NOTUS: And I think it's in the face of people close to Biden who wanted maybe to see him receive Trump more negatively or kind of give back what Trump gave him in 2021. This is very clearly that Joe Biden was not going to do that. He wanted to leave Washington, at least in some ways, better than what he found it and leave the traditional classic Joe Biden, that I am an institutionalist and that I think about the nation --

BASH: Yeah. WRIGHT: -- and what is good for the nation more than I think for himself. I think maybe if he did a little bit more of that during the campaign, things that have been different.

BASH: Yeah.

WRIGHT: But certainly, (inaudible) want to leave.

BASH: It's about the presidency, and not the current holder of the presidency. But there is a little bit of a, please listen to me in here, the -- a reminder that the American people and the people around the world look to this house for steadiness in the inevitable storms of history.

KING: Yeah. And my prayer is you get that. So yes, yes, but done in a very classy, dignified, straightforward, not personal way, to David's point. Both in public and in private, we know what Joe Biden thinks about Donald Trump. And in public and private, we know what Donald Trump thinks about Joe Biden. This is a way -- this is -- this is his last act as president. It's also his first act as a former president.

I think one of the interesting questions is, we've seen in the first two days of the Trump presidency a very active president. We didn't see that for four years with Joe Biden. And part of that was his decline, part of that was his personal style. What will he be like in the --

BASH: Part of it was COVID.

KING: Part of it was COVID. What will he be like as a former president? Tradition is, look at George W. Bush. You bite your tongue when you want to say even about a president in your own -- allegedly in your own party, when it comes to George Bush and Donald Trump. Joe Biden said he is not going to go away, that he's not going to be -- disappear. I'm somewhat skeptical about how often we will see Joe Biden, but when we do see him, does he get involved in the debates of the day or does he leave it alone? The letter suggests, I'm going to try to be a traditional former president. Time will tell.

BASH: But he also --

CHALIAN: I think many of his fellow Democrats would like him to go away.

BASH: But he said -- he said several interviews that he is not going away.

CHALIAN: We will see.

KING: Yeah.

BASH: You don't buy it?

CHALIAN: I just -- the party doesn't really want him right now, largely at the center of these conversations.

KING: Right.

CHALIAN: And he is due to his retirement. I mean, I'm sure he'll want to weigh in on certain things, but I don't think he foresee -- I don't think he really sees himself playing a central role in driving the party forward.

BASH: Yeah. I mean, I don't know that he's going to go paint like --

(LAUGH)

BASH: George W. Bush or fish or do something else.

Race cars. He'll tinker with his cars maybe.

(CROSSTALK)

[12:55:00]

BASH: Maybe. Maybe. All right, everybody, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much for your terrific reporting, and thank you for watching "Inside Politics." "CNN News Central" starts after the break.

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