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Trump Holds Cabinet Meeting Amid Immigration Crackdown, Potential U.S. Action In Venezuela War Crime Allegations; Trump: Affordability Word Is "Con Job By The Democrats"; Hegseth Pins Decision To Launch 2nd Strike On Special Ops Admiral. Aired 12-12:30p ET

Aired December 02, 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]

DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Every country agreed to it because I said, if you're not going to agree to it, that's OK. I'm going to charge you tariffs. And as soon as they said that, they said, we agree. And then we had to be a little tough with the drug companies. But they came along. The bigger problem was the countries. The countries just wouldn't go along with it. But they did, every country.

So, we have reduced drug prices by 500, 600, 700, 800, 900 percent, depending on the drug, depending on the company, depending on all of the different factors involved. Nobody's ever even thought of drug reductions like that, price reductions. And I told you the story that in my first term, I was so proud of myself because I reduced drugs. It was the first time in 28 years that drug prices were reduced, was one quarter of one percent, one quarter of 1 percent.

And I was so proud of myself. I said, is the first time in 28 years that drug prices went down over the course of a year, over the course of a presidency, one year, one quarter of 1 percent. I had a news conference. I was so proud.

Now I got him down, not one quarter of 1 percent. I got him down 400, 500, 600 percent and more. And the fake news won't write about it and it's going to have a huge impact on healthcare because a big part of its buying drugs, buying prescription drugs, drugs. It's going to have a huge positive impact because Obamacare is a disaster.

I said it years ago, and I say it now. And the money should be paid, taken away from the insurance company. Obamacare was made to make the insurance companies rich. Their stocks have gone up 1,000 percent in a short period of time, because the money goes to the insurance company. I want the money to go to the people. That all the money go to the people, and that the people go out and buy their own healthcare.

And I see on television people are advertising now. We will help you buy healthcare. We will go out and help you buy. That's becoming like an industry because of what I said. So, something's going to happen. It's probably not going to be easy, because the Democrats, frankly, they don't want to make a good deal for the people. They just want to make a bad deal for the country. They want to make a bad deal for the Republican Party, but the Republican Party is united.

And I will say that what I would like to do is the money doesn't go -- trillions of dollars get paid to drug companies, and you still have lousy healthcare. Obamacare is horrible healthcare. We want it to go to the people and then let the people go out and buy their own health and they'll do great. They'll do great. So, we're negotiating that now with the Democrats. Well, congressional Democrats want the largest tax hike in history.

I proudly signed the largest tax cuts in American history with the great big, beautiful bill. The great big, beautiful bill, the biggest piece of legislation ever signed, and that includes the extension of the original Trump tax cuts, but it's the biggest tax cut ever signed, and it includes no tax on tips, no tax on overtime, and no tax on social security. Nobody has ever seen anything like it.

So, think of that. And in addition, you get -- if you buy a car, this is great for our car industry because we have a lot of car plants. We're bringing back the automobile business. 60 percent of it was stolen because we had incompetent presidents or incompetent trade people, but 60 percent of it was stolen over the years. And now we'll bring it -- I think we're bringing it all back. I think we'll be bigger than ever that we've ever been in the auto business.

That's not even to mention AI, where we're leading China. You know, we're leading China by a lot. They're not going to catch us. We have to be smart, but if we're smart, they're not going to be able to catch us. They know that. They told me that next year is projected to be the largest tax refund season ever and we're going to be giving back refunds out of the tariffs because we've taken in literally trillions of dollars. And we're going to be given a nice dividend to the people, in addition to reducing debt.

We, as you know, I inherit a lot of debt, but its peanuts compared to the kind of numbers we're talking about. So, we're going to be making a dividend to the people, and additionally, we're going to be able to reduce debt. And as time goes by, over the next two, three, four years, those numbers are going to go up.

And I believe that at some point in the not too distant future, you won't even have income tax to pay because the money would take it in, is so great, it's so enormous that you're not going to have income tax to pay. Whether you get rid of it or just keep it around for fun, or have it really low, much lower than it is now, but you won't be paying income tax.

[12:05:00]

We've slashed $1 trillion in costly job killing regulations, saving Americans and estimated $2,100 for a family of four. The Biden administration was the exact opposite, but times four. They went up $6,000. We went down $2,100, think of that. To bring down energy, electricity and utility prices, I ended the green new scam. They caught the green new scam. One of the greatest scams in the history of our country. They talked about global warming and all the crap, and what they've done to this country. What they've done by allowing 25 million people into our country, many of whom are criminals, many of whom 11,888 are murders. And we have to get them out and we're doing it. We're doing it. I think what the job that our law enforcement groups are doing? Kristi, you and Tom and everybody, amazing. What you're doing is amazing.

I terminated the insane electrical -- electric vehicle mandate. And look, some people that make electric cars weren't happy with that, but we have to do that, because you have to have a choice, whether it's a gasoline powered car and we have so much gasoline. You know, China doesn't have gasoline, we do. And whether it's a hybrid, which really are working really well, the combination of electric and gasoline driven.

But we -- you know, everybody was supposed to by 2030, everybody had to own an electric car under the Biden stupidity. And not everybody wants to do that. I like electric cars. I like all cars. They're all good. They all have reasons, but you want to be able to go and buy what you want.

I have post historic tariffs that are now bringing in so much money that we've never -- nobody has ever seen anything like it. And countries that were ripping us off, including allies, but they were ripping us off for years. I won't use the names. I won't mention Japan. I will refuse to mention South Korea. I will not mention names, but they were ripping us off like nobody's ever been ripped off before and taken horrible advantage of your country.

And now we're making a lot of money. We're making a lot of money because of the tariffs that are pouring in, and it's really national security among everything else. It's national security. We've also rapidly turned the worst border crisis in world history. I believe we had the worst border ever in history. I don't care if you had a fourth world country. You know, we allow third world country and we would allow fourth world war countries.

And also, it doesn't matter. There was never a border that was as bad as our border. We allowed anybody in with no checks, no vetting. So, we've rapidly turned the worst border crisis in world history into the strongest border in the history of our country, and probably one of the strongest borders in the history of the world because we have nobody coming through.

And I want to thank our people. The border patrol is so amazing, ICE. And I want to thank the military for the backup because they're standing right behind them. And that was really nasty for a period of months and now it's no longer nasty. Now they don't even come up. Nobody comes up. It's an easy job. Made your job a lot easier because they know they're not going to get through.

And we take people in, but they have to come in legally. For six months in a row, zero illegal aliens have been admitted into the United States. You believe that? Zero. We had millions of people coming in a year, millions. Now we have zero for six months. And these are given by radical left people that do the numbers. I mean, they're not doing many favor. That's they're being, we don't have -- we don't have that.

Our net numbers are unbelievable. But we had zero people in the last six months, illegal border crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border, and plummeted to the lowest level ever recorded, ever recorded. And nobody talks about that anyway. You know, it's crazy. They don't talk about it. You think they'd say, well. Trump said a great job in the border. This country is being destroyed by the border, but you always find something new, like, is he in good health? Biden was great, but is Trump in good health?

I sit here. I do news, four news conferences a day. I ask questions from very intelligent lunatics. I always give the right answers. There's never a scandal. There's never a problem. I give you answers that solve your little problems. You go back and you can't find anything. But you do -- you do stories about Biden was in wonderful health. The guy could -- didn't do a news conference for eight months.

[12:10:00]

If I go one day, I had one day where I didn't do a news conference. There's something wrong with the president. You people are crazy. I'll let you know when there's something wrong. There will be some day that's going to happen to all of us. But right now, I think I'm sharper than I was 25 years ago, but who the hell knows.

I took -- by the way, I took my physical. I got all A's everything. But they said to me, would you like to take a cognitive test? I said, is it hard? They said, yes. I said, well, I'm a very smart person. Who was the last president to take one? No president has ever agreed to take one, because when you get into the mid questions, meaning, you know, 10, question number 10, 11, 12, 28, 30, they get harder and harder.

And they said, would you like to do it? I said, well, no reason to do it. Nobody's ever done it. I'll do it maybe but there's really no reason. They said, so the problem is, this is Walter Reed hospital, and that's a military hospital. And that means that things are, you know, sort of open.

It's not like private, where you have -- if you do poorly, we'll have to -- probably you'll find out. I said I won't do poorly. I'm a smart person, not a stupid person. And as the doctor will tell you, I aced it, right? Seriously, I aced. I got every question right. And these are tough questions. These are questions that I would say 99 percent of the people that I'm talking to right now, meaning the people from the fake news, would not do well in those exams.

But I'm the only one that took it. I got every single question right. And then I read in The New York Times, is Trump sharp? Trump is sharp, but they're not sharp. That's why they're going out of business to New York Times. I think they're losing so much money, it's ridiculous. They're a bunch of fakers. But we have -- we can never let another thing happen, like what happened to us with a fake election, with a rigged election, where a guy like Joe Biden assumes the presidency because the man was grossly incompetent and he was incompetent 30 years ago, but he was really incompetent.

DANA BASH, CNN HOST, INSIDE POLITICS: OK. We're going to continue to monitor the president of the United States in what he said was the last cabinet meeting of this year of 2025. We are going to certainly come back into it when he begins to take questions, and when and if, we hear from the defense secretary who is sitting to his left. We did hear the president talk about a lot of issues that he is trying to put his spin on, especially issues surrounding the economy, healthcare and specifically affordability.

And my panel is here now. Jeff Mason. I'm going to start with you because you have been a reporter in many of those sprays, those cabinet meetings and other White House events, and it was really striking when he said affordability is a Democrat scam. I mean, if that is Donald Trump, being the most Donald Trump, I can remember him and thinking that he can, with his words, with his sheer will, change the reality that people are feeling. It's a risk.

JEFF MASON, WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT, REUTERS: It's a huge risk. Affordability essentially brought down the presidency of President Joe Biden, and it could bring down, I mean, I'm hesitant to use the words bring down, but it could absolutely bring down the dominance that President Trump has in Washington.

If the midterm elections next year go in the direction that at least the last set of elections that we've seen go, it's going to be really tough for Republicans. And that quote is almost certainly going to end up in a bunch of commercials for Democratic candidates. I think what he's trying to say is the Democrats are mischaracterizing the economy that he is so proud of.

But the polls show, and the numbers show that people around the country are concerned about the economy, not just because of inflation, which is down compared to the Biden years, but prices are still up, and that's what hits people in the pocketbook and that's what hits politicians at the electoral box.

BASH: Right. Just over the weekend, CBS News released a poll among the findings. 58 percent of people. 58 percent, that's almost six in 10, say that prices are going up. Also said, that 32 percent, you see there on the screen. Only about a third of the people in this country think the economy is good.

And look at that last one. It's exactly what we were talking about. 60 percent think Trump makes prices or inflation sound better than they are. So that speaks to what you were saying, Jeff. I'm going to get Daniel Dale in here in a second. But talk about the discussion that he had, the soliloquy that he had about Walter Reed and about the cognitive test that he took.

[12:15:00]

You know, he again, was not asked a question. He was just kind of waxing about his health and about his ability. This is after he has been asked several times about the MRI that he got, where he said, he doesn't know why he got it, where he got it, or what the results were. AYESHA RASCOE, NPR HOST, "WEEKEND EDITION SUNDAY" AND "UP FIRST": Yes. And they did release some findings from it and said that, you know, it came out fine. It was, but it's not something that you generally do for a physical. You don't get an MRI. So that comes up, and there have been these reports that he's doing a bit less, right?

And people can see with their eyes, like this is an older man, and that he has had issues, whether it's the scar on the back of his hands or swollen ankles, and but he's trying to say, I'm not like Biden. I took this cognitive test. He's always talking about that. I think at a certain point it does -- it raises more questions than it answers, because that cognitive test that he's always talking about is not some hard IQ test, right?

And like, at a certain point it's like, why are you so focused on this? What are you trying to tell us? And are you trying to tell us? Are you trying to maybe make up for something? And I think that's the question. But this is the way he handles these things. He says, I'm the best there ever was. I took the test that nobody else would ever take and nobody else would ace it the way I do.

BASH: OK. And we're continuing to monitor this cabinet meeting to see again if he takes, he the president takes any questions, or if we hear from Pete Hegseth or any other news that comes up as we do. I want to bring in CNN fact checker, Daniel Dale. Daniel, what did you hear in what the president has said so far that you think is important to point out?

DANIEL DALE, CNN SENIOR REPORTER: A whole lot of lies about a whole lot of subjects and some of the greatest hits claims we've been hearing over and over from him on the subjects of the economy and affordability. For example, he said that he's cutting prescription drug prices by 500 percent to 900 percent. He said that's something nobody's ever heard of. Well, nobody's ever heard of it because those numbers don't make mathematical sense.

If there was a reduction of more than 100 percent, Americans would get paid to acquire their medications, which is not happening. He could tout some actual reductions in the prices of a smattering of drugs, but they're not more than 100 percent and that's certainly not widespread.

He said again, grocery prices are down. No, they're up. They're up 2.7 percent year-over-year as of September. 1.4 percent from the month he returned to office in January, so up, not down. He said, since last January, we stopped inflation in its tracks. Well, the inflation rate in September, the most recent we had, was 3 percent year-over-year. That is the exact same as it was in January. And September was the fifth consecutive month, the year-over-year rate had increased. So, it's rising. It hasn't been a stop.

He said he inherited the worst inflation in history. No again, he inherited 3 percent inflation, even the peak Biden error inflation, Dana, 9.1 percent in June 2022, was not close to the all time record. He said, we're now at about $2.50 for gasoline. You can find some stations today where gas is 2.50 or less, but the national average was right around exactly $3, so significantly higher than he said.

He said his big, beautiful bill included no tax on social security. Didn't do that. It temporarily increased the standard deduction for seniors but didn't fulfill his campaign pledge to completely eliminate tax on social security. And then boasting about his supposed economic success, he said again that he secured over $18 trillion in investment since returning to office in January. That number is about double the number the White House's own website uses it.

That website uses 9.6 trillion. I went through that number line by line based on the White House's supposed figures, found that even that smaller figure is a large, wild exaggeration, so certainly no basis for that 18 trillion figure. So, in summary, we've heard all these before. We've debunked them before, online, on TV, but the president keeps saying them.

BASH: Daniel Dale, thank you so much. And I'm still going back to what's on our screen right now, when the president said affordability, and that word is a con job by Democrats, and just as a -- just a pure political matter. It's going to be very interesting to see how that plays. Never mind with Democrats, but with the Republicans who are actually going to be before voters this coming year.

All right, coming up. We're going to continue to monitor this cabinet meeting. And we just heard the president praise his Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. We're going to talk about the latest fallout from the drug boat strikes, alleged drug boat strikes in the Caribbean. And whether, as Democrats have suggested, as legal experts fear, there was a war crime committed. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[12:20:00]

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: OK, let's get back to the president's cabinet meeting. Pete Hegseth is speaking.

PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY: -- destroyer over Thanksgiving the spirit in our ranks since the election under President Trump is unprecedented. I've never seen anything like it as a soldier myself in uniform, and I know a lot of you feel the same way. We've ripped out the DEI and the political correctness. It's all merit based at the department. We're getting back to basics, accountability, training, readiness, lethality, and that's reviving that spirit.

Mr. President, we're rebuilding the military historic investments. I just took briefings on the Golden Dome and F-47, next generation capabilities that are going to make sure that for generations to come, America has the most powerful, most capable, most lethal military in the world, which you have rebuilt once and we're rebuilding again.

And then we're reestablishing deterrence of credibility. If you look at what happened. We deal with every day, the outcome of what happened in Afghanistan, the debacle under Joe Biden. We just dealt with it in the streets of Washington, D.C., with those two national guardsmen. And then what happened on October 7, the Hamas, what happened in Ukraine, a war that never would have started under President Trump. We're having to rebuild that.

So, whether it's freedom of navigation and taking the fight to the Houthis, whether it's midnight hammer, those beautiful B-2s going 37 hours back and forth undetected, delivering with precision, and Iran not getting nuclear capabilities. Europe and NATO stepping up to 5 percent, locking down our Southwest border. It's been an honor to work with Kristi and Tom, and everyone else down there to lock it to zero, operational control of our border.

And then it's getting after and going after Narco terrorists and designated terrorist organizations in our own hemisphere. As I've said, and I'll say again, we've only just begun striking Narco boats and putting Narco terrorists at the bottom of the ocean because they've been poisoning the American people. And Joe Biden tried to approach it with kid gloves and allowed him to come across the border. Cartels take over community, 20 million people, hundreds of thousands of Americans poisoned.

And President Trump said, no, we're taking the gloves off. We're taking the fight to these designated terror organizations, and it's exactly what we're doing. So, we're stopping the drugs. We're striking the boats. We're defeating Narco terrorists and we're--

TRUMP: And I think Pete, you may say one thing that drugs coming in through the sea by sea are down 91 percent, and I don't know who the 9 percent is.

HEGSETH: I'm not sure either circuits.

TRUMP: But down 91 percent by sea. We've had a bit of a pause because it's hard to find boats to strike right now.

[12:25:00]

HEGSETH: Which is the entire point, right, deterrence has to matter, not arrest and hand over and then do it again, the rinse and repeat approach of previous administrations. This is meant to get after that approach. And I will just end by saying, as President Trump always has our back, we always have the back of our commanders who are making decisions in difficult situations than we do in this case and all these strikes. They're making judgment calls and ensuring that they defend the American people. They've done the right things. We'll keep doing that and we have their backs, Mr. President.

TRUMP: Good job. Thank you very much. Alex?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So, we set out to stop the rip off of the United States of America. This is about global change of trade. We've been ripped off since 1945 when we set this policy. So, we set out and together with my partners, Jamieson Greer and Scott Bessent--

BASH: OK, we're going to continue to monitor this, but we have to digest what we just heard from the Pentagon leader, the treasury -- the treasury secretary, sorry, the Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth. A lot to unpack. First of all, a full on defense of the strategy to take out these alleged drug votes as they're coming in.

And then at the end there, Natasha, you have to talk about the context around when he said that he has the full -- the commanders who take carry out these strikes have the backing of the leadership. There's a reason he said that.

NATASHA BERTRAND, CNN NATIONAL SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Yeah. I mean, look, I think he's very much trying to have this both ways. On the one hand, he's saying that we fully support what these commanders are doing. On the other hand, he's saying that we're going to keep striking Narco terrorists and put them at the bottom of the ocean. But also, this was Admiral Bradley's decision, full stop. He's the one that made this decision on September 2 to kill the survivors of that -- of that strike.

And so, I think that Hegseth recognizes that there's a little bit of vulnerability here on his part. But the reality is that there are serious questions about why they made -- why they made that decision to kill survivors of that first strike, and ultimately, why they then changed course and began repatriating survivors after that first strike. Was there a recognition there by lawyers, perhaps that, hey, maybe this is not going to be good for us--

BASH: In the future.

BERTRAND: Yeah.

BASH: And I just want to unpack that, and I should say that you and the team you're working with have been doing tremendous reporting on this. I mean, this in large part came out because of your just terrific journalism on Admiral Bradley. Can you just for those who are not entirely sure of who he is, why, what Pete Hegseth just said matters, and that's based on some of the things that you're hearing.

You're not in the building anymore, but you and other reporters certainly are hearing from the building, the Pentagon about the -- fair to say, backlash against the defense secretary, because there was a feeling that he was throwing the admiral who was in charge of those strikes under the bus.

BERTRAND: Yeah. And just a few minutes ago, the press secretary at the Pentagon gave a briefing to DOD friendly journalists, I should say, who are now in the building. And she reiterated multiple times that ultimately, Hegseth and Donald Trump are the ones who make all the decisions about the strikes, about the operations. But at the same time, she and Pete Hegseth are saying, the admiral who was in charge of this particular operation kind of lower down the chain of command, he is the one that ordered that second strike that killed the survivors.

So, while Pete Hegseth may have authorized everyone involved to kill everyone who was on board that boat, which we reported that he did prior to that operation. He said, kill them all. It was Admiral Bradley, according to the Pentagon, who then made the decision, seeing that there were survivors from that first strike to then move forward and say, we're going to finish them off. Because that's what Pete Hegseth apparently wants us to do.

And I think that there's a lot of -- the right is exploiting kind of this nuance and saying that because Pete Hegseth didn't necessarily order that second strike to kill the survivors, which we don't know if he actually did at this point, then that kind of absolves him of all culpability in this.

But there is a lot of heartburn in the Pentagon right now amongst officials who are saying, how is Hegseth shifting entirely the blame to Admiral Bradley, who was the JSOC commander at the time, you know, while at the same time he's saying that he has his back. But clearly, he's trying to shift responsibility entirely for the strike to him.

BASH: I want to go back in time to September 3, right after this strike, or now two strikes that we understand happened occurred, and Pete Hegseth was on Fox News, talking about what he saw in the video where that actually occurred.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

HEGSETH: I watched it live. We knew exactly who was in that boat. We knew exactly what they were doing, and we knew exactly who they represented.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

PRISCILLA ALVAREZ, CNN CORRESPONDENT: And there is where the nuance is right, in terms of watching something, ordering something. We also haven't seen, correct me, if I'm wrong here, Natasha, what that second strike -- the video of the second strike. They have put out multiple videos on social media in the wake of the strikes, but that one we haven't seen yet. And this isn't just something that lawmakers are asking a lot of questions about.