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Inside Politics

FBI, Pentagon Investigating Dem "Illegal Orders" Video; Hegseth Weighing Punishments For Kelly Over "Illegal Orders" Video; Judge Dismisses Georgia Election Case Against Trump; Final Trump Criminal Case Is Officially Dead; GOP Rep. On Witkoff: "Would A Russian Paid Agent Do Less Than He?"; Trump Backtracks On Deadline For Ukraine To Accept Peace Deal. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired November 26, 2025 - 12:00   ET

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

[12:00:00]

PHIL LEMPERT, FOOD INDUSTRY EXPERT: You know, restaurants are really understaffed. So, what they have to do is they have to, you know, pay their people more than normal and especially on Thanksgiving Day, you know, don't forget that these people work on tips for the most part. So, if you're going out for Thanksgiving, make sure you tip well.

PAMELA BROWN, CNN ANCHOR, THE SITUATION ROOM: So, maybe Phil, that's a good advice. And maybe people are making those reservations because they just don't want to cook now because they think they're going to get a better deal. Really important insight. Phil Lempert, thank you so much, and I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

LEMPERT: Thank you. You too, Pamela.

BROWN: Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I hope everyone watching also has a wonderful Thanksgiving. Inside Politics with Audie Cornish starts right now.

AUDIE CORNISH, CNN ANCHOR, INSIDE POLITICS: The Trump administration steps up efforts to investigate its critics in Congress. Now, six Democrats who the president accuses of sedition say he's sending the FBI after them.

I'm Audie Cornish, in for Dana Bash. Let's go behind the headlines at Inside Politics.

Six Democrats on Capitol Hill are now under federal investigation over their video urging service members to reject illegal orders. The FBI has reached out to the Capitol police about interviewing all six. The lawmakers say President Trump is quote, using the FBI as a tool to intimidate and harass members of Congress.

The administration is acutely focused on Senator Mark Kelly, a decorated and retired navy captain. The Pentagon has threatened to demote him, dock his pension, even prosecute him. Kelly responded last night on Jimmy Kimmel.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP) SEN. MARK KELLY (D-AZ): I've almost gotten killed for this country, multiple times, almost shot down over Iraq and Kuwait, had a missile blow up next to my airplane. I got on a rocket ship four times, millions of pounds of rocket fuel for this nation. And then I wake up one day and I got the president United States threatening me with my life that I'm going to be hanged. And by the way, I mean, isn't this the guy two months ago that said, we've got to stop this, like political violence issue. He didn't -- he didn't even make it to Thanksgiving.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: OK. I'm joined by a terrific group of reporters to help break this down. And just for those at home who are trying to keep track, we made a handy graphic of all the agencies currently involved in investigating like anyone, so Department of Justice, Comey, Letitia James, Bolton, Department of Defense now, federal housing agency, Commerce Department for Harvard, like the list kind of goes on and on. What's distinctive about this moment?

ARLETTE SAENZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, I think that the fact that we're seeing President Trump really utilize the full force of the federal government to try to go after people who have spoken out in opposition to him or against him. But what's really unique in this is the fact that they are investigating a sitting U.S. senator, someone who is a decorated military veteran who went to space multiple times for this country and simply for speaking out and saying -- stating, what is policy that troops do not need to follow unlawful equal orders from the president.

I think it's going to be interesting to see whether any of these senators and House members actually sit down for interviews and what exactly the FBI is seeking. We know that the Pentagon is launching a review into Kelly, but we don't know what those FBI interviews specifically are for. Are there other investigations--

CORNISH: Yeah. And I want to let some other folks jump in here, but first, we should hear Kash Patel, who's been asked like, hey, what's going on with this? You'll be looking into these folks. How are you going to handle this? Here's what he had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

KASH PATEL, FBI DIRECTOR: What goes through my head is the same thing that goes through my head in any case, is there a lawful predicate to open up an inquiry, an investigation, or is there not? And that decision will be made by the career agents and analysts here at the FBI.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Is the FBI getting involved?

PATEL: Based on the fact that is an ongoing matter, there's not much I can say.

(END VIDEO CLIP) NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: I think there's a lot of insecurity at play here by Kash Patel and by Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth. They are really catering to an audience of one, and that is because both of their positions seem very tenuous right now. Secretary Hegseth, of course, is sitting at home, tweeting about Senator Mark Kelly, tweeting about how there's going to be an investigation to him. While the Army Secretary, Dan Driscoll is overseas, working on issues of war and peace, doing a very fragile agreement with the Ukrainians and Russians.

CORNISH: He's tweeting about the Scouts of America as well. Like there's a lot going on there.

BERTRAND: Very much Hegseth is aware of those optics, according to our sources. And so, by going all in on this investigation as he has, he understands that he is, you know, acting upon Donald Trump's wishes. This is something that Trump has been fixated on for weeks now, tweeting relentlessly about it, posting relentlessly about it. Hegseth latched on to that and he sees an opportunity.

CORNISH: Which, ironically, just means the ad plays more right, as you draw more attention to it?

[12:05:00]

HANS NICHOLS, POLITICAL REPORTER, AXIOS: I mean, it's like this is an in kind contribution to Senator Kelly's nascent or potential presidential campaign, right? He's drawn a great deal of attention to Senator Kelly, Slotkin as well. I mean, Burgess and I spent a lot of our time chasing Democratic senators around the Hill. They're going to be a lot of Democratic senators are going to be running for president, and this has suddenly elevated Mark Kelly and put him on and give him a great platform.

I mean, we just watched him do a late night clip there where you got to talk about some of the things that he wants to talk about, i.e., his biography. This is an opportunity for Kelly to introduce himself to the country. And in some ways, Trump did what a lot of times his critics -- it's reversed a little bit. Trump took the bait on this, right?

These guys gave it, and they, you know, we can argue about how seditious it was, but they gave -- they knew what they were doing when they gave the statement. They want to elevate their point of view. They want to get into headlines. And then Trump actually, what does he do? Well, he elevates their point of view, and he gets into more headlines. So, it's been an interesting dynamic.

CORNISH: Yeah. And the flip side of that we heard from, I think this is Representative Slotkin, who posted a video to X last night about the part that's like, not so fun, the part that's not going on. (inaudible), let me just play that some of them for you.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

SEN. ELISSA SLOTKIN (D-MI): We saw an immediate and massive uptick in the number of death threats that we got. The Capitol police and the sergeant at arms decided to put myself and others on 24/7 security. They're here today. We had a bomb threat at my family farm where I live. My family has been harassed. It's been an immediate change to our life.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BURGESS EVERETT, CONGRESSIONAL BUREAU CHIEF, SEMAFOR: I also just don't think it's a coincidence that you're seeing these cases against Letitia James and James Comey thrown out while we're seeing this focus on Mark Kelly and Elissa Slotkin and these four House members. I mean, it feels like there's definitely an audience of one. There's some performative value going on here for the FBI and for Hegseth. But I also think, like Donald Trump likes having an enemy, he likes having a foil, and he's picking these Democrats and he's--

CORNISH: But he finally feels like he's in control too, right? And I think the thing about Hegseth and Kelly is that that's a court where you have a little more influence. That's a court under the executive, right? You're not fighting with the judiciary.

The New York Times is writing about this, saying that it seems like this constant process of discovering levers that can be pulled, that either no one is paying attention to in the first term, or there were checks in place for those levers. And it's saying that this retribution is starting to impose a lot of costs without a real end game.

NICHOLS: Yeah. I don't know about the end game. The federal government has enormous powers. We saw that with a lot of universities that didn't quite know how many different levers the Trump administration could pull to put pressure on them.

My understanding of the, you know, uniform military code of conduct and court-martial is pretty de minimis, so I probably shouldn't weigh in here. It probably goes only as far as a few good men. I do think that military courts generally tend to be fair, right? So, yes, so I think we should stand up for that and sort of note that there hasn't been--

CORNISH: I think the reason why only because I've covered these courts. I'm only bringing it up because Hegseth has made some serious changes to the military structure. He has fired some people. He said others have been disloyal. So, this is not a infrastructure that has been untouched by the administration's push for loyalty.

NICHOLS: Yeah. I'm just not in position. I don't know what the procedure is being. I don't know if he's changed the procedure. And you know, if there is an idea, we're jumping ahead three parts of the story, right? The main part of the story is these people were intimidated. They feel unsafe and the Capitol police feels unsafe. I got a little off track, talking about the derivative effects of 2028.

(CROSSTALK)

CORNISH: And Natasha, I feel like you've written about this. What happened? I mean, how did Hegseth meddle, so to speak?

BERTRAND: Yeah, Hegseth has been very, very skeptical of military lawyers for quite a long time now, particularly uniformed lawyers, and the ones that would be prosecuting Senator Kelly, if it actually got to a military court, would be the JAGs, would be the judge advocate generals.

And he hasn't actually been able to reshape and restructure the JAG corps in a very big way. Over the last several months, he has fired some senior jags. They have been replaced with folks that some say are friendlier to the administration's point of view, but there are still career rank and file Jags that would be involved in this.

And bottom line here, experts tell us that this is going to be tainted from the start, just given the fact that Hegseth and Trump have weighed in so extensively on it. There is something in the military called unlawful command influence, and it's very serious, and that is probably defense number one that Kelly would put forward.

CORNISH: All right, you guys stay with us, because we've got some breaking news out of Georgia. The final criminal case against President Trump for trying to steal the 2020 election has come to an end. And we're also going to be talking turkey and paying for it. We'll break down how the Trump tariffs are impacting your Thanksgiving dinner.

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[12:10:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

CORNISH: We have breaking news out of Georgia, where the election interference case against President Trump and his allies has been officially dismissed. Now this was the final pending criminal case against Trump.

We're going to go to CNN's Kara Scannell. Kara, I understand that a new prosecutor was just appointed to the case, and this is after Fani Willis was removed. What do we know about this decision to drop the case?

KARA SCANNELL, CNN CORRESPONDENT: So, the prosecutor who came in to review this case is a career prosecutor, Peter Skandalakis. And he reviewed the files of this case and went through some of the evidence and issued this decision. And what he found, he said that the overarching theory of this prosecution was not viable. He said it's not illegal to challenge an election. And he does go through various pieces of the evidence in this case.

[12:15:00]

And one of the things that launched this investigation was Donald Trump's phone call to the Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. When he told him he wanted him to find the votes. That was the allegation that Trump was trying to interfere and overturn the results of the 2020 election.

So, the prosecutor in reviewing that, he writes this, he says, while the call is concerning, reasonable minds could differ as to how to interpret the call. When multiple interpretations are equally plausible, the accused is entitled to the benefit of the doubt and should not be presumed to have acted criminally.

He also goes on to say that this case is one that really should have been handled in a federal context. And of course, Special Counsel Jack Smith did bring a federal charge against Trump and others for this conduct. That case was then dropped because of the Supreme Court's immunity decision.

And so, Skandalakis is saying here that there are a variety of reasons of why this case should not go forward. He said it would be illogical to continue to pursue it, especially when Trump is not going to be out of office for another three years, when it would be the next viable place for him to come to Georgia to face these charges.

But he really does attack a lot of the evidence in the case, saying that he just does not think it is worthwhile to move forward with this prosecution. Certainly, ends a big moment, as you said, one of the last overarching, or the last overarching, criminal case facing Trump is now come to a close.

CORNISH: OK. Kara, thanks so much for that detail. I want to bring our reporters back in and kind of remind people why this became the story. It did, and it was in part because there was audio for people to hear this phone call between then President Trump, and at the time Georgia Secretary of State, Brad Raffensperger. Here is that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA (voiceover): So, look, all I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

CORNISH: I think it's interesting to hear that this prosecutor looked at all the same stuff and made a different decision -- like and actually talked about his reasoning.

SAENZ: Yeah. And I think that when that audio first came out, people were incredibly shocked that the president was making that request of Georgia secretary of state. But ultimately, this case has gone through a long and winding road. We're now five years later, almost after that call was made, and in the end, this is really a major victory for President Trump.

These ideas or these criminal cases that have been brought against him at one point were thought to completely imperial his chances of reelection, and now he is once again emerging unscathed from this, just years after people believed that he was in the wrong--

CORNISH: Yeah. The political landscape in Georgia in a lot of ways. NICHOLS: Yeah, in some ways. But like a lot of the cases, and I think the Trump people will tell you this is that when the cases were brought against Trump, especially the ones in New York, it actually helped him politically. And it allowed him to emerge very strong in the Republican primary and become the de facto nominee before there was ever really a challenge.

And so, in some ways, and then he had the best of both worlds, where, yes, he was convicted in the one case. But after that, if you remember the rhetoric, both Democrats and Republicans were saying the same thing, and that is, it's ultimately going to be the voters who are the jury on this and they're going to be the ones that can decide.

And I think that's was -- that was the inside straight that Trump always planned to, sort of run or win. And when he wins the election one by one, and they're almost too many to keep track of, one by one, these cases are dropped and fall aside.

EVERETT: And I think in retrospect, like as someone who was in the Capitol who covered that impeachment trial, you know, when people look back on this moment and what is the check on presidential power. It's going to be that impeachment trial. It's going to be those votes.

You can't think, oh, the voters are going to sour on this guy, or that even the legal system can hold the president accountable, who can win reelection like this. And so, I think when you look back and maybe looking forward, the precedent for a check on a president's power is probably this impeachment trial and following through on it.

CORNISH: OK. You guys stay with us. Next, we're going to talk about the president's top negotiator and accusations that he might be too chummy with Russia. That's what Washington is buzzing about after a leaked transcript of a pivotal phone call.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

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CORNISH: 24 hours ago, the White House said a peace deal in Ukraine seemed tantalizingly close. Today, nothing seems imminent, far from it. And there are new questions about the president's negotiating team after Bloomberg News obtained the transcript of a call last month between Trump negotiator Steve Witkoff and his Russian counterpart.

So, in the call, Witkoff appears to be sort of coaching Putin's top negotiator on how Putin should pitch President Trump on a peace plan. And he suggests, for instance, start by praising Trump for the Gaza ceasefire. So, he says, just reiterate that you congratulate the president on this achievement, that you supported it, you supported it that you respect that he is a man of peace, and you're just really glad to have seen it happen. So, I would say that. I think from that it's going to be a really good call. Now, Witkoff also talked of his deep respect for Putin. So, the panel is back. I'm interested in this story because Witkoff has been kind of the closer, right? You want to go do something Witkoff, all of a sudden appears. We don't know sort of how he operates? How he does his work? Hans, what do you see in this chat?

[12:25:00]

NICHOLS: I see a deal maker trying to create the sort of conditions for a deal but having not been in too many conversations where people are trying to flatter or appeal to the president in a pre-meeting. I don't know how common this is, right? It seems like it's what, to me, the most unique part about this is the transcript elite, but that's the journal question.

CORNISH: That's the other question. Who do we think leak this thing?

EVERETT: Somebody who didn't like the way that the negotiations were going.

CORNISH: OK. That list is rather long. I'm going to play just some voices to the people who are concerned, some moderate Republicans who were taking to X on Tuesday, kind of specifically about Witkoff, not this call, but about his role in this process. One saying, this is a Rep. Fitzpatrick saying, these ridiculous side shows and secret meetings need to stop, allow Rubio to do his job.

And then Don Bacon, Republican who's saying it's clear that Witkoff fully favors the Russians. He cannot be trusted to lead these negotiations. Would a Russian paid agent do less than he? Again, Republican, like I'm kind of surprised to see him laying into him, which with such specificity. He's saying he can't be trusted.

BERTRAND: Yeah. I mean, I think two things can be true at once. I mean, it's certainly true that things were getting very much off track with the Russian, Ukrainian talks at that point. And it was widely understood that it was the Russians who were not coming to the table with reasonable demands. And so, it makes sense that Witkoff would want to communicate with the Russians to try to get all of this back on track.

But I will say it seems to have gone a little bit too far, because prior to Zelenskyy coming to the White House on that Friday, there were talks about giving Ukraine these very sophisticated, long-range missiles. They were, President Trump seemed very much on the side of the Ukrainians, saying that they could actually win the conflict outright. Then he--

CORNISH: That he's the tomahawk missiles.

BERTRAND: The tomahawk missiles. Then it seems like Witkoff kind of intervened, and was like, let's get Putin to talk to Trump before he meets with Zelenskyy, so that he can then have in his head a more favorable view of the Russia--

CORNISH: I think we have that, that little bit someone brought up. This is, again, that October 14, call. This is with Yuri Ushakov. And according to this Bloomberg News transcript, you have Witkoff saying, hey, look, there's one more thing. Zelenskyy is coming to the White House on Friday. Our Russian counterpart here chuckles. And then he says, you know, I'm going to go to that meeting because they want me there. But I think, if possible, we have the call with your boss before that meeting. So, you're translating for us, saying that--

EVERETT: That's understanding that whoever is last in President Trump's ear usually is what he'll go into a negotiation kind of feeling more sympathetic to. And it did completely derail the visit with the Ukrainians. They did not get nearly the things that they wanted. So, it's a push and pull, but I think there is some merit to saying that perhaps Witkoff, having these conversations with the Russians on the side isn't the most productive.

NICHOLS: It's also quick flatteries foundational to diplomacy, right? Like any deal -- I'm sure if we led the transcripts of the consulate like the Congress of Vienna, there'd be many untrue things that were said, but we're very kind about each other, right?

CORNISH: I think people are only talking about it because those senators came out over the weekend and said, hey, we heard this is just a draft from Russia, and no one asked them to come out and say that and that sort of made this topsy turvy

EVERETT: And they sort of represent this, this wing of the party that's wanted to be way more hawkish against Russia than President Trump, frankly, seems like he wants to be. But I think President Trump doesn't see this as his war. So, I think the details matter less to him than ending it and getting a peace deal. He wants to put this up on his, you know, pedestal of wars that he ended and that's the most important thing to him.

SAENZ: I also think one thing to watch when we get past the Thanksgiving holiday is what these Republican senators are going to do on sanctions. There were a lot who were expressing some frustration towards the end of the week as this draft peace deal started to leak. You saw Brian Fitzpatrick say, I'm going to put out a discharge petition to try to force a vote on this. That's something that Lindsey Graham has been pushing for months. Will this finally push these Republicans, senators and members in the House to move if President Trump hasn't fully signed off on that?

CORNISH: I'm also going to be watching the Rubio of it all, just because seeing him come to the forefront, even in the crowd of the Witkoff, the Jared Kushner's, it's a different mix.

EVERETT: Yeah. We've heard about these sanctions for more than six months now. Every few weeks, Lindsey Graham comes out and says, we're ready to do them, and he says, Trump is ready to do them. And then Trump doesn't quite give that green light. So, I feel like I've been taken a bunch of times on the sanctions.

(CROSSTALK)

EVERETT: I'm open to being persuaded.

CORNISH: One buy line, I won't look at.

NICHOLS: Well, that's our assignment editor here, I will give Burgess credit. Burgess usually breaks the news. The sanctions are back on track, and it's true at the time, and I have to chase it. So, you basically just given us our assignment for Monday, Tuesday night. There we go. Which, we'll be talking to Republican senators like, how close are you.

Remember last time Trump actually escalated himself and said, I'm going to do these sanctions. I'm going to go to 100 percent, and then, now there are sanctions, or secondary tariffs on India, but there's a whole question on China. So, with sanctions, you can always ratchet up higher, and that's what Republicans want to do. And we'll see if there's a -- I suspect there was -- there's going to be more of the dance.

CORNISH: Yeah. Also, nerding out if discharge petitions are the new black, like, is this the way to actually get something done. Like, I'm going to be curious to see if someone else tries it. You guys stay with me. Next, we're going to have a report about President Trump's schedule.